


The Boy with the Bread

by daniomalley



Series: The Boy with the Bread [1]
Category: Bandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 14:16:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daniomalley/pseuds/daniomalley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gerard lives a simple life in district twelve, working his his parents' bakery and taking care of his brother Mikey. He's happy enough until the day Mikey's name is drawn in the Reaping and everything changes forever. A Hunger Games fusion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boy with the Bread

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Bandom Big Bang Wave One 2012. Originally posted on 28/6/2012. Betaed by forbiddensatan. Artwork created by cheerfortyranny can be viewed [here](http://daniomalley22.livejournal.com/12304.html#cutid1), and fanmix created by erraticonstilts can be found [here](http://daniomalley22.livejournal.com/12188.html#cutid1). This is a hc_bingo fill for the 'fighting' square.

Cake decorating wasn’t something Gerard had set out to be good at. He just was, there was something about it that he enjoyed, and it came easily to him. He knew his parents didn’t understand it, but it was useful in the bakery so they didn’t complain. Mikey thought it was awesome. The only downside to that was when he was younger, and couldn’t understand why they couldn’t eat the cakes Gerard had created.

He made a point of decorating a small cake for Mikey’s birthday each year. He couldn’t make it too spectacular, or their mother would complain about the wasted money, but it always made Mikey happy, anyway.

The year Mikey turned twelve, it was a bit different. They tried to celebrate just like always. Gerard actually made even more of a fuss than he usually would have, but that just seemed to add to the sense of doom. Better make the most of it, he caught himself thinking. This might be our last chance.

Being twelve made Mikey eligible for the reaping. His name would go into the draw along with everyone else in District 12 between the ages of 12 and 18, right along with Gerard’s. Only two names were drawn, so the odds of escaping unscathed were in his favour. But every year, two people were chosen to face almost certain death. Everyone dreaded the reaping.

That morning, Gerard was more nervous for Mikey than he was for himself, even though it was completely illogical.

“Your name’s only entered once,” he said reassuringly to Mikey just before leaving the house to gather in the square. “You’re going to be just fine.”

Mikey just looked at him with frightened eyes, and Gerard realised maybe Mikey wasn’t afraid for himself, either. Gerard’s name was entered in the draw thirteen times. Five, for the five times he’d been part of the reaping, and another eight, for the two lean years he’d had to take out tesserae, take extra entries in the reaping in exchange for a monthly ration of grain and oil for each family member.

“We’re both going to be fine,” he insisted, but even to his own ears the words sounded unconvincing. “Hurry up,” he added. “We can’t be late.”

Attending the Reaping was compulsory for everyone. The children in the draw were grouped by age in the centre of the town square. Gerard squeezed Mikey’s hand one last time and left him with the twelve year olds, then went on to stand with the other sixteen year olds.

The minutes before the draw happened were always painful; waiting for some inevitable misery to fall and being uncertain only of who, and how. When Mayor Toro stepped out onto the stage, they knew it was almost time. He told, as he always did, the history of Panem, and the games. 

After the place that used to be North America had experienced such terrible destruction, both from natural disasters and from the unrest of the people, a new nation was created, made of twelve districts ruled over by the Capitol. The nation was called Panem, and for a time there was peace, but then the people in the districts grew greedy. They were jealous of the Capitol, and the wonders that existed there. There was a rebellion.

The rebellion was crushed, the insurgents defeated by the Capitol’s superior technology. To remind the districts of the futility of resistance, the Capitol created the Hunger Games. Each year, two tributes were chosen from each district and taken to the Capitol, where they were trained and prepared and then sent to an arena to fight to the death.

Once the mayor had finished his speech, Gerard clapped dutifully along with the rest of the crowd. They applauded, not because they wanted to, but because they were under the eyes of the Capitol. The Hunger Games were supposed to be treated as a celebration, rather than the horror they were. Even a refusal to play along was an act of defiance which could bring down retribution.

The mayor retreated to the back of the platform, and someone else stepped forward. It was Pete Wentz. Gerard watched with more interest. Wentz was from the Capitol; the only person from the Capitol he’d ever seen. He was the official who was supposed to be in charge of running District 12. In reality, they only saw him at this time of year. Wentz smiled brilliantly at the crowd; he was a bit too far off for Gerard to see his face clearly, but it was helpfully projected onto the large screens behind the stage which displayed the national broadcast. His hair this year was blue and spiky. He was wearing a light shirt which was open at the neck and short sleeved, revealing colourful designs tattooed on his skin. His face was made up in shades of blue and gold, and all in all he looked nothing like anyone Gerard had ever seen in District 12, not least because of his wide smile. It was something Gerard didn’t forget; that Pete Wentz always smiled, always looked and sounded happy. He sort of hated Wentz for it.

“Good morning, District Twelve!” he greeted brightly. “It’s so exciting to be here again, at the start of another Hunger Games!” The crowd watched sullenly. “Let us welcome District Twelve’s victor and mentor, Alicia Simmons!” A round of applause filled the square, and Alicia staggered onto the stage. Gerard watched dispassionately. Alicia was drunk, which was not out of the ordinary. She was so drunk she could barely stand, which was a little less common, but not totally unheard of on Reaping Day.

Alicia came to the front of the stage and waved at the crowd. She stood next to Wentz and put an arm around his shoulders, leaning heavily against his side. “Pete,” she slurred. “Petey. Happy Reaping Day!”

Wentz patted her back and tried, Gerard thought, to look as though this was all part of the plan. He almost managed it, until Alicia grabbed his shoulder with her other hand and planted a kiss on his lips. The crowd roared with laughter and Wentz’s smile became very fixed. Gerard figured Alicia’s breath had to be almost pure alcohol, and on top of that, District 12, and by extension Wentz, would now look like a complete laughing stock to the rest of Panem. Gerard would have had some sympathy for Wentz if not for his association with the Capitol.

Alicia moved back to sit at the rear of the stage with the mayor, and Wentz tried to get the proceedings back on track. 

“Well then, it’s time for the games to begin! Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favour!” 

The crowd watched silently as Wentz plunged his hand into the bowl. He rummaged around and the small slips of paper tumbled and rustled. He lifted his hand out clutching one of them, and the entire crowd held its breath. This was it, the moment where the terror of an uncertain future would become a horrifying reality for one child, one family. Wentz unfolded the paper and read the name, then raised his head to announce it to the crowd.

“This year’s first District Twelve tribute for the seventy-fourth Hunger Games,” he proclaimed, “Will be Michael Way.”

Gerard swayed and felt someone standing at his shoulder steady him. There was movement farther along in the crowd, where the twelve year olds were gathered, and eventually Mikey emerged, flanked by two Peacekeepers. Gerard stumbled to the front, reaching out to Mikey, but by the time he reached the walkway Mikey had already passed. The Peacekeepers nudged Mikey up onto stage and he stood up there, next to Wentz, his face now shown in a huge scale on every screen in the square. He looked afraid, although he was still and quiet. He was always kind of pale, but his face up there on stage was whiter than Gerard had ever seen it.

“Well, then,” said Wentz, sounding sort of unsettled. No one liked it when a twelve year old was chosen. They didn’t think it was fair. Besides, Mikey was well liked; Wentz could probably sense the crowd’s displeasure. “Michael. Welcome to the Hunger Games. How does it feel, winning the chance to represent all of District Twelve?”

Mikey didn’t answer, and Wentz chuckled. “He’s speechless with excitement, folks!” he chortled, and Gerard knew if he were closer he would be trying to remove the man’s head from his shoulders. “But, before we proceed, we must ask if there are any here today who wish to volunteer in Michael’s place?”

Volunteers. They always asked for them. They did it every year. Gerard had just forgotten, because in all the years since the Hunger Games had begun, District 12 had never had one. But he could volunteer. He could save Mikey.

It was a frightening idea, and his mouth was almost too dry to force the words out. “I...” he began, and had to stop and cough before he could continue. “I volunteer!”

He had to say it again before people seemed to hear the words and understand what they meant. He could see heads turning his way, shocked and disbelieving expressions pinning him down. He didn’t pay attention; he was on the move, trying to get to the front where he could get Wentz’s attention. “I volunteer as tribute!”

Wentz looked as though he was frantically trying to figure out what to do, which Gerard figured was exactly what he was doing. He climbed up on stage and stood opposite Mikey. He met his brother’s eyes for a second and had to look away again. Mikey’s expression of betrayal was too much to bear.

“Well, um...” Wentz paused. “In that case, I suppose... Michael, you can, uh... go.”

Mikey didn’t move until the Peacekeepers returned and took him by the arms. He twitched as they moved him, gently but firmly, off the stage. Gerard reached a hand out too him as he passed, but cut the gesture off before he could make contact. Somewhere, underneath layers of disbelief, he was starting to realise that his whole life was about to become very public. Every single thing he said or did could affect his chances of survival. 

“So,” Wentz was saying when Gerard started paying attention again. “District Twelve’s first brave tribute! This is quite a momentous day!” He gave that grin again, obviously beginning to consider how this unexpected outcome could work to his benefit. “And what is your name, young man?”

“Gerard,” he answered softly. Wentz tilted his head, encouraging Gerard to speak up. He raised his voice. “Gerard Way.”

“Way?” Wentz asked. “Ah, so that was your brother!” He gripped Gerard’s shoulder and shook him lightly. Gerard couldn’t find the breath to answer, so he just nodded. “Wonderful! What an inspirational story!” He turned Gerard to face the crowd more squarely. “Let’s welcome the first tribute from District Twelve!”

The crowd watching didn’t clap, like Gerard was expecting them to. Instead, someone in the crowd, too far off for Gerard to recognise, raised their left hand and put the middle three fingers to their lips, then lifted the hand into the air, the palm facing Gerard. Like a ripple, or a wave, the rest of the crowd followed suit, standing silently with their hands out in a gesture that the people of District Twelve used sometimes, to show respect and say goodbye. Gerard had seen it before, but never in a huge group like this. Never so publicly, on a day when it would be seen by the entire nation. He sweated at the sight a little, because it was dangerous, what they were doing. Just a little too close to rebellion. He tried not to show his fear, though. He had to appear strong. Right now, his competition could be watching and sizing him up. 

“Okay!” Wentz said quickly, as though to move the proceedings on from the district’s unseemly show of defiance. “We still have another Tribute to select!”

He went back to the bowl and Gerard watched with detachment. It didn’t seem so important now who the next tribute was. His fate was already sealed, and Mikey was safe. Nothing else was as important as that. There was no name Wentz could read out that would affect Gerard the way hearing Mikey’s had.

“District Twelve’s second Tribute will be... Francis Iero.”

*********

Gerard knew Frank Iero. Not well, actually he couldn’t remember ever speaking to him. But he recognised him. He lived in the Seam, with his mother. The Seam was mostly populated by coal miners and other people who couldn’t afford anywhere better. Frank and his mother definitely qualified.

There was some murmuring from the crowd as Frank walked towards the stage, his eyes huge in his pale face. Lots of people knew Frank. He was one of the few people who would go beyond the perimeter fence to hunt game and gather fruit. He traded it in the Hob, the old coal warehouse which was used for illicit trading. He stood out in a crowd. Most of District 12’s citizens weren’t brave enough to go beyond the fence, where there were all kinds of beasts and dangerous plants. And most of the others who hunted game like Frank did didn’t have his skill with a bow.

Frank climbed up onto the stage and up close, it was easy to see how slight he was. Short, and thin. He didn’t look like much, but Gerard was aware that Frank had a far better chance of surviving the Games than he did. Even so, Frank’s chances were incredibly small. Gerard swallowed and turned his face away, just enough that he couldn’t see Frank any more.

They were the same age, and in the same class in school. Gerard remembered the day of the mine explosion the year they had both been eleven. They’d heard it from their classroom, and the teachers hadn’t known what to do. The children whose parents worked in the mines ran from the school to the mine entrance, where a group were trying to dig out the collapsed shaft and rescue the survivors. They had found one survivor, a man who had managed to duck behind a mine cart. He ended up losing his right arm, but kept his life. Twenty-one others died, Frank’s father among them.

For weeks after that, Gerard remembered seeing Frank around, scavenging for food and trying to sell anything valuable he possessed. His mother was provided with a small sum of money which was supposed to keep her and her son fed until she found work, but Gerard supposed she couldn’t because as time went on it became clearer and clearer that Frank was starving. He remembered wanting to help, but that wasn’t something people did in District 12. Keeping your own family fed was hard enough. Giving precious resources away to a stranger was unthinkable.

Their bakery sat between the Hob and the Seam, and Gerard would often see Frank go past. Worrying about Frank, he had the idea to set some of the bread and pastries too close to the fire. Not too many, not more than they could spare, but enough. And then he would take the singed food and put it in a paper sack by the gate, instead of feeding it to the pig like his mother ordered.

The first time, he made sure Frank saw him put the food there and realised it was meant for him. He did it a few more times after, and he figured Frank must have started hunting a month or so later, because that was when he stopped taking the food. It was a relief, because his parents were growing a lot less patient with his carelessness, and because, somewhere along the way, Gerard had started to care very much about whether or not Frank was all right. He’d never really gotten out of the habit.

But Frank wasn’t all right now, and there was nothing Gerard could do about that.

***********

After the ceremony, Gerard and Frank were escorted off the stage, and Peacekeepers took them to the mayor’s house. They were ushered into separate rooms, and Gerard sat on the beautifully made sofa to wait. This room was where he would say his goodbyes. After a few minutes the door opened and Mikey came into the room, along with their parents. For a few minutes, there was a pained silence. Gerard could tell that Mikey, in particular, was struggling to keep calm. 

Eventually, his mother was the first to move. She put her hands on Gerard’s shoulders and kissed his cheek. She wouldn’t quite look him in the eye, but she held him for a long time.

Gerard’s father sat beside him on the couch. “You’re smart,” he said. “And you don’t give up. Even when you should, sometimes. Don’t you give up now.”

Gerard nodded, appreciating the sentiment, even though he knew what kind of tributes won the Games and they were nothing like him. 

“Take care of Mikey,” he said. Mikey scowled at him, and his father looked ready to object, so Gerard ignored them both and looked only at his mother, who he knew would listen. “Don’t ever let him take tesserae, no matter what.”

“Come home, and you can take care of him,” said his father, forcing a bright note to his voice. “This year, this is the year District Twelve wins, I’m sure of it.”

“That Iero boy could be a contender,” his mother agreed, and a pained silence fell because they all knew that wasn’t what his father had meant, but it was the much more realistic view.

“Here,” Gerard’s mother added, pulling out a handkerchief. “Take this. You’ll need a token from your district, so... you should have this.”

Gerard smoothed the handkerchief in his hands. His mother had embroidered it herself with the small white flowers that grew around the district. It smelled like her. He folded it and tucked it into a pocket. “Thank you.”

Gerard’s parents exchanged a glance and then they left the room, leaving Gerard alone with Mikey. “Mikes...” he said hopefully, lifting his eyes to meet his brother’s staring gaze. Mikey moved to stand in front of Gerard and fell into his arms. Gerard clutched him tightly; he could feel Mikey shaking slightly, and the way his breath was coming fast and shallow. Mikey put his head against Gerard’s shoulder, and Gerard felt wetness on his neck. That set off his own tears. He knew he shouldn’t cry, not when it would only make Mikey more upset and make himself look weak, but if this was to be the last time he saw his brother, he couldn’t bring himself to do something dishonest like hide the way he felt about what was happening. He’d never hidden his feelings from Mikey like that.

It must have been some time, but it felt much too soon when the Peacekeepers returned to announce that it was time for Gerard to board the train. He wanted more time, even just another minute, but he knew the Peacekeepers wouldn’t wait. He pushed Mikey away gently so he could stand up, and Mikey grabbed his arm.

“You better come back, Gee.”

“Mikey...” Gerard began, not sure how to explain it but knowing it would be best if Mikey accepted his death now, did his grieving in private so that it was over with by the time the Games began.

“No,” Mikey said. Peacekeepers pulled them apart and began to march Gerard from the room. “I’ll be waiting for you to come home, Gerard, so you better,” Mikey shouted after him. Before Gerard could think of anything to say in reply, a door closed between them and Mikey was gone.

They travelled to the Capitol by train. Not one of the huge coal freight trains, but a sleek and fast Capitol train that could cover the great distance in less than twenty-four hours. Gerard was shown to a compartment which had a small bunk and a wardrobe that was actually full of fine clothes. For Reaping Day, Gerard had worn his best clothes, good pants and a shirt that had once been his father’s. But the clothes he was wearing were far plainer than anything else on the train.

He spent a few minutes looking around the compartment and then Wentz came past, rapping on the door with a manicured hand. “They’ve served dinner in the dining car, come on down and we can all talk strategy.” He smiled at Gerard and moved on down the corridor. Gerard blinked after him and eventually followed.

Frank was already there, along with Alicia. Frank had actually changed his clothes; Gerard supposed that he had a compartment with a full wardrobe as well, and for all Gerard’s clothes were plain, Frank’s were threadbare and patched. To the shirt he’d pinned what Gerard thought must be his token; a pin with a mockingjay on it, a bird which could imitate all sorts of sounds.

“Frank!” Wentz was gushing as Gerard entered the car. “You look marvellous! You’re really getting into the spirit of things, it’s wonderful to see!”

Frank smiled back, but it wasn’t a nice smile. It was a smile which reminded Gerard that Frank was actually his rival, and also no small threat. Gerard swallowed quickly and looked over to where Alicia sat at the table. “Mutton,” she grumbled as she went at her meal with a knife and fork. “Is there anything to go with this that’s not fermented piss?” She didn’t seem to expect a reply, and no one did answer her so it was probably just as well.

Gerard walked up to the table to view the spread that had been laid out. There was enough food for at least a dozen people. He could see a tureen of soup, what looked like stew and beside it, slices of roast meat. There were vegetables he’d never seen before, cooked in ways he couldn’t imagine. It was all sort of overwhelming. He took a plate and piled it with a little of everything. Across the table, he could see Frank doing the same thing. Their eyes met for a moment, and then Frank quickly looked away.

They sat down to eat and Gerard methodically tried everything on the plate. It was all delicious, and he could see that Frank thought the same. Alicia wasn’t eating much, instead drinking from a glass which she periodically topped up from a flask she kept in her pocket. Wentz cut his own food into delicate bites and smiled approvingly at Gerard and Frank between eating. “It’s lovely to have two tributes who have an understanding of table manners,” he said brightly. “Last year’s tributes, now that was a horrifying display. I don’t think they’d ever even seen a fork before.”

Wentz’s pronouncement pissed Gerard off. He would willingly bet everything he owned that Wentz had never gone hungry a day in his life, unlike the tributes who had been reaped last year. And, table manners or no, they were dead now, both of them, because of the Games. Gerard suppressed his urge to snap back at Wentz, but Frank obviously didn’t feel so inclined. He dropped his cutlery and ate the rest of the meal with his fingers, wiping them on the table cloth once he was done, and staring back blankly in response to Wentz’s horrified stare. Gerard struggled not to snicker.

As though she too were aiming to antagonise Wentz, Alicia downed the last of her drink, then promptly listed to the side and toppled off her chair. If Wentz had looked displeased before, he was much more so now. “Every year,” he muttered, striding away from Alicia and out of the car. “Hopefully one of you two might win this year,” he said as he passed Gerard and Frank. “Then I might be able to spend these journeys with someone who doesn’t consider a fifth of whiskey to be a hearty meal.”

He walked through the door and Gerard fought the urge to throw something after him. Instead he went to Alicia’s side and tried to help her up.

“Why’m I on the floor,” she mumbled as Gerard took her arm. He lifted her to her feet, turning his face slightly away from the stench of alcohol. Up close, he could see the lines around Alicia’s eyes and the downward turn of her mouth. There was a faint scar on her cheek. Gerard tried to remember how many years she’d been doing this, mentoring tributes in the games and watching them die. It was more than twenty, he was sure of it. He wondered what it was like, meeting two new kids every year and knowing that only one of them had even a slim chance of survival. Trying to keep them alive against all the odds, and failing, year after year. 

He helped Alicia walk back towards her compartment. Frank stepped up on Alicia’s other side, taking Gerard by surprise. He had nearly forgotten Frank was there. He gripped Alicia’s arm firmly, but his face was twisted with distaste, and, if Gerard was reading his expression right, anger.

They reached Alicia’s compartment and Gerard opened the door. The compartment was twice the size of his own, which itself was not exactly small. They guided Alicia to the seat but she wouldn’t sit down.

“Thanks,” she slurred. “Jus’ wait a minute... ‘ve got another bottle ‘round here somewhere...” She cast about with one hand as though expecting the bottle to appear from thin air. Gerard abruptly made the shift from sympathetic to furious. 

“I don’t really think you need it,” he said pointedly, grabbing Alicia’s hand. She looked back at him and he felt uncomfortably as though he was being sized up. Then she drew back her other arm and punched him in the face.

She punched hard. Gerard staggered back with a yelp, putting his hands over his bruised cheek and eye. He glared at Alicia, who scowled back, and then Frank got in between them.

“Knock it off!” he yelled, looking even more pissed than before. “What the hell is wrong with you both?” He glared back and forth between the two of them, which Gerard thought was slightly unfair. He wasn’t the one who had thrown a punch.

Alicia seemed to be completely over whatever impulse had caused her to react so violently to Gerard. She looked at Frank intently, and Frank scowled back. “Tougher than you look,” Alicia mumbled. “What else c’n you do, shorty?”

Rather than answer her, Frank pulled a knife from his belt and threw it at the wall, where it stuck perfectly in the seam between two panels. Gerard watched in awe. He had known that Frank hunted and knew how to use a knife and a bow, but he’d never seen him in action like this. It was almost frightening. No, it _was_ frightening, because in a few more days Frank would be one of twenty-three people trying to kill Gerard. He gulped.

“And you?” Alicia asked, and it took Gerard a minute to realise she was talking to him. He shrugged awkwardly. He wasn’t good at much of anything. He was clumsy and the one time he’d tried to punch somebody, he’d accidentally knocked a pitcher of water onto his head.

“Gerard works in the bakery. He’s strong,” said Frank unexpectedly. 

“I’m really not,” Gerard insisted. “No more than any of the other tributes will be.” It was true. When there was heavy lifting to be done in the bakery, he usually tried to be somewhere else. Now it was coming back to haunt him.

“Okay,” Frank allowed. “But you’re stealthy. You’re good at staying out of sight.”

That was something Gerard had never really thought about before. He looked at Frank in surprise, wondering when, and how, he had noticed something like that.

Alicia nodded in approval. “Weapons?” 

“I don’t really... have experience with any.”

“Well. ‘s still something. You’ll have to learn quick, though.”

Gerard nodded quickly and Alicia found a chair and sank down into it. She pulled a bottle out of a drawer, glaring at Gerard as though daring him to say something. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll try to help you both, ‘s long as you listen to me and do what I say.”

Frank said, “Of course,” so Gerard followed suit. Alicia nodded like she’d expected nothing less.

“And my drinkin’s my business,” she added with a glare at Gerard. “I won’t let it interfere. So you stay out of it.” 

Gerard privately doubted Alicia’s ability to keep her promise, but he was in no position to object so he kept quiet.

“It’s late,” Alicia said. “Go get some rest. We’ll get to the Capitol in the morning.” She glanced over Gerard and Frank once more. “First thing they’ll do is have you meet your stylist. You do everything they say, understand?”

“But...” Frank started to object.

“You agreed to do what I said!” Alicia snapped. “Why are you still standing here?”

Gerard flinched away and backed out into the corridor. Frank followed, slower and looking resentful. “She hasn’t got a clue how to help us,” he muttered, but Gerard noticed he didn’t say it loud enough for Alicia to overhear.

************

The Capitol was beautiful. Gerard had known it would be, but knowing was different to seeing. Everywhere he looked, his eyes fell on something that was more incredible. There were beautiful sculptures and gardens everywhere. The buildings themselves were like works of art. Gerard looked out of the train window in wonder.

The tributes were all housed together in a building in the very centre of the Capitol. An elevator carried Gerard and the rest of the group up to the twelfth floor, and then Frank and Gerard were quickly separated and sent to meet their individual stylist teams.

Gerard didn’t meet his stylist straight away; instead, a team of three people met him and saw to it that he was washed and dried, that his nails were perfectly filed, that his hair was trimmed, his eyebrows plucked and his teeth cleaned. The whole process took several hours. Gerard had never considered himself a slob – well, not much of a slob, at least – but compared to the people who lived in the Capitol...

Once he was cleaned up to the satisfaction of his prep team, they left and someone new entered the room. He was short, with fair hair which hung straight to his collar and dark eyeliner smeared around his eyes. Compared to Gerard’s prep team he looked quite ordinary.

The man sat at the table across from Gerard and scrutinised his face. “Hi?” Gerard said uncertainly.

“Hi,” said the man. “I’m Patrick, your stylist. Your hair has a mind of its own, doesn’t it?”

“I guess so?”

“Hmm. It’s okay, we can work with that.” 

Patrick looked at Gerard some more, and he tried not to fidget. “Have you styled for many tributes?” he asked, for something to say.

“This is my first Games,” Patrick answered.

“Oh,” said Gerard. That made sense. “That’s why you got District Twelve.”

“Oh, I asked for District Twelve,” said Patrick. “The coal district,” he went on. “You know it’s traditional, in the opening ceremony, to costume the tributes in a way that reflects their district?”

Gerard did know that. It didn’t leave many creative options open to District 12, except for that memorable year when the tributes had been sent out naked and covered in coal dust. “So I’m going to be wearing a coal mining outfit?” he asked hopefully.

“I think we can come up with something a bit more unique,” said Patrick with a smile. “You’re not afraid of fire, are you Gerard?”

**********

The next night, when Gerard stood with Frank waiting for their turn to ride their chariot out in front of the crowd, he wondered what would have happened if he’d said he was. He and Frank were both wearing capes over black suits, and in a few minutes Patrick was due to come over and set them on fire.

“It’s perfectly safe,” he’d said reassuringly. “It’s synthetic. Just for show.” As Gerard remembered it, Frank looked over at him and smiled, although it looked a little sickly on him.

“What do you think about this?” he asked, tugging on his cape.

“I’ll rip yours off if you rip off mine,” Gerard offered. He was rewarded when Frank’s smile widened into a genuine grin. He lost his train of thought then, and only snapped out of it when Patrick appeared. He carried a small torch which he touched first to Frank’s cape, and then Gerard’s, and their capes began to blaze brightly in shades of red and orange. Gerard waited and slowly relaxed as the flames failed to burn.

“It works,” Patrick breathed. 

Gerard looked sharply at him, wanting to ask, “You weren’t _sure_?” but before he could, they were getting the signal to climb onto their chariot and have their turn being presented.

He and Frank climbed on, and Gerard looked back at Patrick one last time. He said something Gerard couldn’t quite hear, and was startled when Frank took his hand. “It’s what Patrick said,” he explained when Gerard looked at him. A moment later, the chariot began to move and the bright lights of the Capitol shone down on them. Gerard got an impression of a massive crowd watching. Ahead of him, he could see the high balcony President Korse would be watching, along with other Capitol officials. He could hear hundreds of voices making impressed noises. He was absolutely certain that he and Frank had outdone every other pair of tributes at the Games.

Gerard tried to look confident and unruffled for the cameras. He wanted to look strong in front of the competition, but more than that, he knew that Mikey would be watching him right now, on the screens set up in the town square to broadcast the Games to District 12. Gerard didn’t want Mikey to see him look overwhelmed or afraid. He hid his nerves and smiled and waved at the crowd, trying to look like the sort of tribute a sponsor might take an interest in. 

Later, after the ceremony was over and Gerard and Frank were both back on their floor of the tributes training centre, Pete and Patrick both seemed excited by the effect they had had on the crowd. Alicia did too, although she was quieter about it. They watched a replay of the ceremony and Pete mentioned that he had already heard of interest from a couple of potential sponsors, which was very encouraging news.

“You’re holding hands,” Alicia commented as Gerard and Frank’s chariot appeared on the screen.

“So clever!” Pete gushed. “It makes you stand out from the other tributes, showing your solidarity while the rest stand alone.”

“Patrick told us to,” Gerard said at once, not sure why he was feeling so defensive about it.

“Oh, it’s a good idea,” said Alicia. “Clever, like Pete said.” But she kept watching Gerard with a speculative gleam in her eye after that, so Gerard tried to avoid her gaze.

Once the replay was over, Pete and Patrick left the room, but Alicia asked Gerard and Frank to hang back. “Training starts tomorrow,” she said with no preamble. “So tell me, what can you do? You told me a little the day we arrived. You know your way around a knife, Frank?”

“Well enough,” Frank answered. 

That prompted Gerard to speak up, because it seemed like Frank was going to let the matter rest there, and not mention any of the many other things he could do. “He’s better with a bow,” Gerard said quickly. “My father bought game from him sometimes. He never misses, he always shoots the kill through the eye.”

Gerard was surprised when Frank glared at him. “What are you doing?” he hissed. 

Fair enough, maybe he was exaggerating a little, but it was better than what Frank was doing. “You’ve got to tell her what you can do!” he insisted. “You’re a good shot, you know you are!”

Frank glared some more. “Why don’t you worry about yourself?”

“Yes, Gerard,” Alicia interrupted. “What can you do?”

“Nothing,” Gerard said impatiently. “Just what I told you on the train.”

“There must be something else,” Frank insisted. “You worked in a bakery. You must at least be able to handle a knife, or something.”

“There’s a big difference between a bread knife and the ones they’ll have in the arena,” Gerard insisted.

“Not that big,” Alicia disagreed. “It’s something. But you should both try to hide your real strengths during the training. Work on learning new things instead. And one last thing,” she added just as they were about to leave. “During the training, the two of you stick together. Every moment, understand?”

“What?” Frank snapped, sounding angry. “Why?”

“Because I said so, and because you agreed to do whatever I say!” Alicia retorted. “Go get some sleep, and tomorrow, you show up at the training centre _together_.”

Gerard wasn’t sure why Frank was so against the idea. He didn’t quite understand the angle Alicia was trying for, but he trusted her to know what she was doing. For all her problems, Alicia’s first piece of advice had paid off in a big way, and that had won Gerard’s confidence. That Frank objected so strongly to the instruction for them to stay together bothered Gerard. He knew it probably shouldn’t be much of a priority. At least one of them was certain to die very soon, and then it wouldn’t matter if Frank liked him or not. But he was pretty keen for Frank to stay alive, and if he ignored Alicia’s advice, it might end up costing him.

Luckily, Frank apparently valued his promise to Alicia enough to show up at the right time the next morning and accompany Gerard to the training centre. Most of the other tributes were already there. After watching the opening ceremony, Gerard knew which district they were all from. The tributes from districts 1, 2 and 4 were all volunteers. Their districts were wealthy and trained their tributes from a young age to compete in the games. They weren’t supposed to, but it happened anyway. Usually, one of those districts won. As they filed into the training room, the volunteers – the Career tributes – picked up fearsome looking weapons and handled them skilfully. It was a deliberate show, Gerard knew, meant to intimidate. It was very effective.

One particular tribute stood out. He was from District 2. His hair was dark and messy, not unlike Gerard’s, but he was much bigger. Not in height, but in bulk. He wielded a sword, completing moves with ease that Gerard knew he could never manage with years of practice. As Gerard watched, one of the untrained tributes tripped over the staff they were trying to use, and the District 2 boy laughed cruelly.

Across the room was a young girl who couldn’t have been older than twelve. Gerard knew she was from District 11, the agriculture district. At the opening ceremony, her stylist had dressed her rather unimaginatively in a dress woven from grasses. It had looked as appealing and comfortable as a haystack.

“What should we do first?” Frank asked. Gerard looked around the room. There were trainers present to assist with training in every possible field from combat and weaponry to survival tactics and knot tying. Thanks to Alicia’s instructions, they knew to avoid the archery range, the knives, and the camouflage. That left a wide range of other options.

“I’m going to need to learn how to hunt for food,” Gerard suggested. “Who can teach us about that?”

For several hours, they learned to set snares for trapping game, and once that was mastered, they learned to set other traps which would work against humans. They took a break for lunch, and afterwards had more lessons on everything from starting fires to identifying poisonous plants. The next day was similar, and the day after that. At some point during those days, Gerard noticed the young girl from District 11 following them closely. 

“I think her name’s Jamia,” Gerard murmured to Frank. He’d overheard one of the trainers talking to her.

“So?” Frank said harshly. “What can we do about it?” 

Gerard shrugged and returned his attention to the lesson on first aid.

The third day was the last day of training. That afternoon they were to have private sessions with the Gamemakers, where they were to do everything they could to impress. Based on their performance, they would each receive a score from one to twelve to indicate their potential in the arena. It was important, because the scores would influence their chances of getting sponsors.

It was nerve-wracking, watching the other tributes go in one by one and waiting for them to come out again, looking pleased or disappointed. They went in order of district, so Frank and Gerard were last. As the Gamemakers called in the other District 11 tribute, an angry looking boy named Spencer, Gerard looked over at Frank and said, “Make sure you shoot straight.”

Frank nodded. “I will. And you... you show them, like Alicia said.”

“I will,” Gerard answered. For the next few minutes they sat in silence, and then they were calling his name. He walked shakily into the room. All the equipment that had been present during training was there, and Gerard headed straight for the rope station. 

He prepared all the traps he’d spent the past few days learning, and then concealed them using plants from the edible plants station. He covered the practice dummies in mud and leaves, and to finish things off, did the same to his own clothes and stood beside them, trying to remain still. He didn’t blend in as well as he would have liked, because rather than feet, the dummies rested on metal stands, but Gerard hoped it would still make an impression. He was dejected, however, to realise that most of the Gamemakers were more occupied with eating and drinking the banquet that had been laid out for them, rather than paying attention to what he’d done. He was dismissed soon after, and left the room feeling disappointed, barely remembering to wish Frank luck as he walked past.

As disappointing as his private session had been, Frank’s must have been far worse, because he stormed back to their rooms in a foul mood and locked himself in his bedroom.

Frank didn’t emerge until dinner time, when Alicia hammered on his door and demanded that he present himself so they could discuss whatever had happened and perform damage control. Frank looked a bit calmer when he appeared, and they sat down to eat before starting to discuss the afternoon’s events.

It might have been deliberate on Alicia’s part, to ask Gerard about his session first. “It kind of sucked,” he admitted. “They were more interested in stuffing their faces than watching me. I did all the traps and the camouflage, but I think they barely noticed. I’ll probably be lucky to get a four.”

Alicia nodded understandingly. “Don’t worry about that,” she said. “The scores aren’t all that important anyway.” Yes, Gerard was certain she’d deliberately talked to him first. “So, Frank, what about you?”

From Frank’s behaviour, Gerard was sure none of them were expecting good news. He couldn’t speak for the others, but what Frank actually said was the last thing he could ever have thought of. 

“I shot at the judges,” he admitted.

“You did _what_?” Pete exclaimed, shocked.

“Well, not exactly. They were all standing around eating, like Gerard said, and not paying attention, and I got mad, so I shot the apple out of the roasted pig’s mouth.”

Silence followed. Gerard looked around to confirm that yes, everyone else looked as stunned as he felt.

Pete was the first to break the silence. “What on earth were you thinking? Shooting at the judges! That’s... Have you completely lost your mind? Do you have any idea...”

“It’s done, Pete, let it go,” said Patrick, and Pete went quiet at once.

“What are they going to do?” Frank asked, showing real fear for the first time since the day of the reaping. “Will they arrest me?”

“No,” said Alicia. “Not with the Games about to start, they won’t bother. Besides, they won’t want to admit that anything like this could have happened.”

Frank nodded. “Yeah, I sort of realised that was probably true. But what about...” he fidgeted uneasily. “What about my mom, back home? What if they do something to her, because of what I did?”

No one said anything for a few minutes. Pete opened his mouth, but Patrick must have kicked him under the table, because he jumped and closed it again quickly. Eventually, Alicia said thoughtfully, “I don’t think they will. I don’t think they’ll consider it worth the effort, when you’re... when you’re going into the arena in a couple of days. But, they probably won’t give you a very good score. And there might be things they’ll do to make it more difficult for you in the arena. You should be prepared for that.”

Frank nodded slowly, his face still pale but not so greenish. Not too long after, the broadcast of the tribute scores began to play, and they all straightened up to listen.

The scores were displayed with a picture of the relevant tribute. The career tributes all got nines and tens, as expected. The scary looking boy from District 2, Bert, got a ten. The others got a wide range of scores, from three to nine. Little Jamia got a surprising score of seven. Gerard wondered what she’d shown the Gamemakers. Spencer got a nine. Then it was Gerard’s picture that showed up on the screen, a score of eight flashing beside it. Eight. It was much better than Gerard had expected.

“Good work, Gerard,” Alicia said softly as Pete and Patrick nodded. Gerard gulped and looked over at Frank, who had shredded an entire napkin into tiny fragments of paper throughout the agonising process. A minute later, it was Frank’s image which shone on the screen. The score beside it was an eleven.

“Eleven,” Gerard gasped, hardly believing it. Elevens were rare. Almost unheard of. Frank looked stunned.

“Well,” said Alicia. “I guess it’s safe to say you made an impression.”

************

The next day, they had the interviews. The morning and afternoons were to be devoted to preparation, and Gerard got up early with that in mind. He was used to rising at dawn because of the bakery, so it was no challenge to catch Alicia alone before Frank got up.

“There’s something I want to talk to you about,” he said nervously.

“What’s that?” Alicia asked.

“It’s... after the scores last night, I realised... It looks like Frank’s got a real chance. He’s good. With the right weapons, the right sponsors, he could win this.”

“He could,” Alicia allowed. “Frank is... he’s got guts. Why did you want to talk about it?”

“Because...” Gerard paused for a long moment, trying to find the courage to say the words. “I want Frank to win. I want... I want to win, but I don’t have a chance, not really. I know that; I’m not stupid. So... I want you to make sure you’ll help Frank win, and if there’s anything else I can do to help Frank win, I want you to tell me so I can do it.”

Alicia studied Gerard’s face in a way that made him feel uncomfortable. “Why did you seek me out to say this?” she asked. “You’re not that selfless. It’s _not_ selfless. What would Mikey say if he knew what you were planning?”

Gerard winced. Mikey would be furious if he knew what Gerard was saying. But Mikey wasn’t here, and if he was, Gerard would tell him he wasn’t giving up, he was just changing his goal. If Frank won, everyone in District 12 would get bonus rations. Mikey would be better off, and his parents would be better off. If Gerard kept trying to win a contest he was certain to lose, they would wind up with nothing to show for it.

“What makes Frank so special?” Alicia asked. Gerard felt his face heat up. He tried to turn away from Alicia, but he was sure she could see through him anyway. “All right,” she said. “I’ve got some ideas. We can talk about them more after breakfast.”

It was a miserable day. He spent all morning figuring out what to say with Alicia, planning different ways to bring up the things he wanted to say in his interview and making them seem natural. After lunch, Pete coached him on the best way to walk, to sit, to smile and laugh. He wouldn’t have thought that it would be possible to devote so many hours of work to such topics, but it turned out he was wrong. By the time evening arrived, he was exhausted and his nerves were frayed, but he was as prepared as he could be.

Patrick arrived with his outfit for the interview, a beautifully cut suit with red and yellow jewels outlining a flame pattern on the jacket. He painted Gerard’s face in colours that complemented his clothes, and when Gerard looked in the mirror he barely recognised himself. He looked mysterious and almost dangerous.

When they arrived at the studio where the interviews were held, the tributes were all gathered together in a room where they waited their turn to be called. Again, they started with District 1 and went from there, so Gerard settled in for a long wait.

The interviewer was a man called Brian Schechter. He’d been doing the interviews for years, and he was good at it. He tried to make each tribute stand out in some way. Each interview followed a strict time limit of three minutes, so at least Gerard knew it would be over fairly quickly.

They watched the interviews on a screen in the waiting room. Gerard tried to pay attention, to glean any information he could about his opponents, but he was too nervous to concentrate well. His attention sharpened when it was Frank’s turn to be called, however.

To Gerard’s eyes, Frank seemed so tightly wound that he was likely to snap. He watched as Brian calmed him with a few simple questions, asking about his impressions of the Capitol and praising his training score. “The boy who was on fire!” he exclaimed gleefully. “That’s certainly fitting now.” He tried to get Frank to tell what he’d done that was so impressive, and Frank skilfully deflected the question. After that, he asked Frank about his family back home.

“It’s just me and my mom,” Frank explained. “She’s taken care of me since my dad died when I was eleven.”

“That must have been hard,” Brian said, and Frank nodded. It had been hard, Gerard knew that. The whole district knew that Mrs Iero had been deeply affected by her husband’s death, and that for many months after it happened, Frank had been the one taking care of the two of them.

Once the interview was over and Frank left the stage, Gerard was the only one left. He made his way out and sat opposite Brian, who smiled at him and said, “Hello, Gerard Way, isn’t it?”

Gerard nodded and tried to look friendly. “I’ve wanted to ask ever since I watched the reaping,” Brian went on. “How did it feel when your brother’s name was drawn from the bowl?”

Gerard’s breath caught at the directness of the question. “I was scared,” he admitted. “Because Mikey’s so young, and... I care about him a lot.”

“So you volunteered in his place?” Brian asked. Gerard nodded, not wanting to say anything else about it. He didn’t want to talk about Mikey and what he’d done for him in front of this huge crowd of strangers. Brian seemed to sense that, and changed the subject. “Your training score was quite good,” he said. “An eight, you must have been pleased.”

“I was,” Gerard agreed. “It was more than I expected. I’m sure no one back home thought I’d score that high.”

“Right,” Brian agreed. “Is there anyone in particular you’re thinking of there? Perhaps you’ve got a young girl back home?”

“Uh, no,” Gerard said, “No girls.”

“Oh, well, a young man, perhaps?”

“Well...” Gerard let the word trail off leadingly and was rewarded when Brian chuckled knowingly. He was relieved; he hadn’t expected it to be nearly this easy.

“Ah, so there is!”

“Yeah,” Gerard admitted, “But I’m pretty sure he didn’t know I existed until the reaping.”

He could hear the crowd reacting to that, and see it reflected in Brian’s face. “Well, then it’s obvious what you have to do. You win the Games, you go home, there’s no way he’d turn you down then, right?”

Gerard rubbed his sweaty palms against his pants. This was exactly what he’d come here to say. He’d be able to do it if he could just stop being so nervous for a few seconds. “In my case, I don’t... I mean, that wouldn’t help,” he stammered.

“And why’s that?” Brian asked, leaning in to give the illusion of confidentiality.

“Because,” said Gerard, pausing to lick his dry lips, “Because he came here with me.”

He heard the crowd groan, the noise having an almost physical presence. Brian looked pained as he replied, “Oh, no... that really is terrible luck.” 

“Yeah,” Gerard agreed, “It’s pretty awful.”

“But I can’t blame you,” Brian went on, the levity in his voice ringing more false than usual. “He is quite a remarkable young man.”

Gerard could only nod to that, and as he did so the timer went off signalling the end of the interview.

During the trip back to the training centre, Gerard gathered that Frank was pissed off from the chilly silence inside the car. He didn’t realise just how angry he was until they got up to the twelfth floor and Frank shoved him so hard he fell over.

“What the hell...”

“Why the fuck did you do that?”

“Frank-“

Frank grabbed the front of his shirt and shook him. “What did you think you were doing?”

Alicia intervened then, grabbing Frank’s arms and pulling him off none too gently. “He was using the strategy I’d suggested. Giving the crowd a story they could connect with, making the two of you more interesting. It will get you more sponsors, and you’re going to need them. It might help if you can restrain yourself from attacking Gerard before you’re even in the arena.”

Frank deflated at that and looked remorseful. “I’m sorry,” he said to Gerard.

Gerard accepted his apology, although he was quite downhearted at the idea Frank found the idea of romance between them to be so repulsive. “It’s fine.”

Pete sent them off to sleep soon after that, and Gerard knew he should get as much sleep as he could. They were going into the arena tomorrow. This was probably the last chance he would ever get to sleep in a real bed. He was going to need all the rest he could get. He could barely force his eyes closed, though. There was every chance that in another twenty-four hours, he would be dead.

The Games didn’t start early; they had until ten o’clock. In the Capitol, people liked to sleep in. Gerard and Frank received the clothes they were to wear in the arena; green tunics, sturdy trousers and good boots. There was another lavish spread laid out for breakfast, and Alicia encouraged them to eat as much as they could. Gerard knew it was good advice, but he was too nervous to follow it.

After eating, or trying to, they were all transported to the arena. The transport took them underground, through a series of tunnels which ended in a large open space. Gerard got out of the transport and stretched his legs. He looked up at the ceiling. Up there was the arena where he and the other tributes would soon be locked in combat. It could be anything; a jungle, a desert, an ocean. The Gamemakers had the technology to create any kind of arena they wanted. 

After arriving, they were to be implanted with a tracking device, which would enable the cameras to find them for the broadcast and also allow their bodies to be collected if it became necessary. Gerard looked at the large hypodermic needle which was supposed to insert the tracking chip and said, “Uh, do you think I can just have a minute here?”

Apparently the answer was no. Someone grabbed Gerard’s arm and the needle was pressed to the crook of his elbow. It hurt. Gerard yelped and tried to pull away. He was pretty sure he heard someone telling him not to be such a whiner. A second later, the needle was gone and his arm was released. He swayed and Frank guided him to a chair.

“Oh, man,” Gerard said. “I don’t ever want to do that again.”

Alicia gave them a last word of advice before they were split up. “When you get to the arena, you’ll see the Cornucopia, that huge horn full of weapons and supplies. They’ll want you to go in and try to fight for it, but neither of you are up to it. Just get out of there, find water and stay hidden.” 

Frank and Gerard both agreed, and Alicia wished them both luck one last time before she left. Frank and Gerard looked at one another, and Gerard said, “Good luck.”

“You too,” Frank answered, and then he was being ushered down a hallway to a different room. Patrick led Gerard to his own room, which contained only a few plates of food and a small round platform on the floor, which he directed Gerard to stand on. When the time came, the platform would lift him up into the arena. Gerard stood on the disc and looked back at Patrick, trying to summon his courage.

Patrick gave him a small smile and a brief hug. “Do you know what you’re going to do?” he asked.

Gerard shrugged. “Sort of.”

Patrick nodded. “That’s probably for the best. You don’t know what might be up there, or what might happen. A rough plan is more flexible.”

There was a small chime, and a plastic tube descended from the ceiling to enclose Gerard on the platform. He looked at Patrick, panicked, and Patrick nodded back reassuringly.

“Remember your training,” he said. “You’re stronger than you think. Don’t lose hope.”

A moment later, Patrick was gone from view and Gerard was rising from the ground and into the daylight. Looking around, he could see pine trees and a lake sparkling off to the left. Ahead of him was the Cornucopia, massive and golden, with weapons piled up in its mouth and spread out across the ground in front of it. The desire to run away was almost overwhelming, but Gerard knew from Games in previous years that he couldn’t leave his platform for sixty seconds without setting off landmines that were concealed around it. 

Stretching out to either side, Gerard could see the other tributes on their own platforms. To his left was Bert from District 2, and to his right, the girl from District 7. Looking farther along, Gerard found Frank, his gaze pinned to the Cornucopia. Following it, Gerard saw what had caught his eye. It was a bow and a quiver full of arrows, silver and catching the sunlight, sitting right at the mouth of the Cornucopia. Looking quickly back at Frank, he saw that he was considering the other tributes and shifting his feet into position to run. He was going to do exactly what Alicia had told them not to.

He willed Frank to look his way and tried to catch his gaze. When Frank finally looked at him, he shook his head, just slightly, and hoped that Frank would listen. He had no more time to worry about it, because the siren signalling the start of the games sounded, and the tributes leaped from their platforms. Gerard darted forward and snatched a small pack a few metres away, hoisting it over one shoulder and bolting away from the Cornucopia. He could hear the sounds of fighting breaking out behind him, but he didn’t look back.

Gerard ran as far as he could. It wasn’t all that far; three days wasn’t enough for any significant kind of endurance training. When he had to stop and catch his breath, he found a spot in a cluster of trees where he was relatively concealed and took the chance to open the pack and find out what it contained.

It didn’t hold much. A small packet of nuts and grains, a box of matches, and best of all, a sharp knife. The pack was small enough for Gerard to tie to his belt, and he did so, keeping the knife in his hand.

Gerard knew his best chance of surviving was to stay out of sight and hope that the rest of the tributes killed one another. With that in mind, he started walking, always heading away from the Cornucopia and trying to listen as he went for the sounds of other people approaching. He looked for places that might be good for hiding. He passed a hollow tree, a hollow in the ground, and a collection of large boulders, making a note of each location for later. He gathered a few leafy tree branches, and attached some to his clothes for camouflage. Satisfied that he would be able to keep out of sight fairly well, he went back to see what he could of the battle at the Cornucopia.

He knew it was still going on, because each time a tribute was killed, their death was announced to the others by the blast of a cannon, and he hadn’t heard any yet. On the first day, because the fighting was so fierce and casualties were hard to keep track of, the cannons weren’t sounded until the tributes had dispersed.

He found a point on a small hill where he could get a decent view and still be out of sight. He stood there and watched what was happening below. There were several bodies scattered on the ground. He could see two tributes fighting not too far away, and a little beyond them a group of three were fighting amongst themselves. As he watched, one of the three fell and the remaining two turned on one another.

He watched for ten minutes or so, and then he heard a noise.

It was footsteps, he realised after listening some more, and they were coming his way. He moved back to stand amongst a group of trees where he would blend in better, and tried to catch sight of the person coming towards him.

It was one of the District 4 tributes, a man with curly hair that reminded Gerard of the mayor’s son, Ray, back home. He was holding a long knife and moving with purpose. His path was going to take him directly to Gerard’s trees, so Gerard tried to move to the side, hoping the other tribute would pass him without noticing. 

Unfortunately, trying to move set Gerard’s leaves to rustling, and the other tribute looked straight at him. He lifted up his knife and picked up his pace. Gerard backed away fast, trying to keep trees in between himself and the other man. He didn’t think he’d be able to outrun him, and in any case he didn’t want to turn his back. But the only other alternative was to stand his ground and fight, and that was something else he’d been hoping to avoid. 

Gerard held his knife tight by his side, hoping that it was out of view. He picked up a heavy rock with his other hand and held it in front of him as the other tribute started to run. The tribute slashed at Gerard with his knife and Gerard ducked out of the way. He tried to knock the knife out of the other tribute’s hand with his rock, but missed. The tributed moved to attack again, so Gerard held the rock up as though he was going to throw it. The other tribute flinched away, so Gerard followed through, throwing the rock as hard as he could.

He’d been aiming for the other tribute’s head, but he missed and hit the man’s shoulder instead. He grunted in pain and quickly switched the knife to his other hand. He moved in towards Gerard again, and Gerard abruptly wished he hadn’t thrown the rock away. He twisted to the side and the knife scraped across his hip instead of sinking into his stomach. Gerard grabbed the other tribute’s arm, pinning it against his side and raising his own knife. The other tribute saw the knife and pulled out of Gerard’s grip. Gerard missed his throat but managed to cut the other tribute’s arm.

The other tribute readied himself to come in again, and Gerard tried to prepare. The other tribute had a much greater reach than Gerard did, between his longer arms and longer knife. Gerard figured he was probably out of time, but he wasn’t going to let Mikey see him give up. As the other tribute came in, Gerard ducked low, making a feint with his knife. Watching for the moment when the other tribute reacted, Gerard sprang up and made a last, desperate stab. 

He felt his knife strike something yielding and saw the shock in the other man’s eyes, the light in them slowly dimming. Gerard drew his knife free from the other man’s throat and stepped away shakily. He’d just killed someone. He’d taken a knife and ended another person’s life with it. When he’d volunteered, he’d never thought about killing people and the probability that he would have to. If anything, he’d sort of figured that he wouldn’t live long enough to be a threat to anyone else. That had obviously been incorrect.

He hadn’t realised that anyone else was there, but as he watched the man he’d killed slump to the ground, someone stepped out of the trees and said, in a tone of shock, “You killed Joe!”

Gerard spun around and tried to prepare himself for another fight. He was tired and sore, and he didn’t think he was likely to get lucky a second time. He hoped the other fights were still going on down near the Cornucopia, and that the cameras were watching them instead of him. He didn’t want Mikey to have to watch him be killed.

Instead of attacking, the new person – Bert, from District 2 – gave him a considering look and said, “You’re from District Twelve, aren’t you? You’re the one who’s in love with... what’s his name, Frank?”

Gerard nodded uncertainly. He didn’t know exactly what was going on, but the threat to his life seemed to have retreated, so he waited to see what would happen next.

“Do you know how he got that eleven in training?” Bert asked.

“Uhhh...” Gerard tried to stall as he wondered what he should say. If he could convince Bert he had useful information about Frank, Bert might decide not to kill him. On the other hand, if it looked like he was selling Frank out to their rivals, not only would it make Gerard the most hated person in District 12, it might cost him and Frank whatever sponsors they had. “I’m not sure?” he hedged. “Frank’s good at a lot of things.” He tried to put an awed tone in his voice, playing the part of the love struck suitor who thought the object of their affections was perfect. It wasn’t all that hard.

“Hmm.” Bert looked at him, and Gerard could almost see the moment where he decided to let him live. “Well, come on,” he said. “A bunch of us are trying to collect as much of the supplies as we can. You might as well help.”

Gerard followed Bert down to the Cornucopia, where everyone who was still alive had stopped fighting. As they walked, the cannon began to sound, one shot for every death. Gerard counted eleven cannon blasts, and tried to count the bodies lying around the area to see if they were all there. He counted ten, and Joe up on the hill must be the eleventh. Frank wasn’t among them, so he must still be alive.

The ‘bunch of us’ that Bert had referred to was, unsurprisingly, the remaining Career tributes from districts 1, 2 and 4. It wasn’t unusual for groups of tributes to work together in the early part of the games. Once they had killed the rest of the competitors, they would turn on each other. Gerard knew it could only be temporary, but going along with the group could be his best shot at staying alive.

Bert had assumed charge of the group, and he directed everyone else to gather everything useful so it could be sorted through. There were a wide assortment of weapons, and there seemed to be some sort of pecking order Gerard didn’t quite understand which determined who got first choice. Bert went first, of course, and took a sword. The girls from districts 2 and 4 took swords as well. The boy from District 1, Jepha, took a spear, and Ashlee, the other District 1 tribute was left till last. She took the bow and arrows that Frank had been eyeing off with a mildly irritated expression. Gerard guessed that she didn’t really know how to use them, but they were the only useful weapons left. After that, they all looked at Gerard expectantly, and he examined the options that were left. He swapped the knife he had picked up for a slightly better one, and then grabbed a staff as well. He figured the staff would be better than the other weapons which he really wouldn’t know what to do with.

They did an inventory of the other supplies after that. There was plenty of food, and containers made to hold water, but they were all empty. Bert directed everyone to grab a couple and take them down to fill at the lake. After the fight up on the hill, Gerard was thirsty, and it seemed the others were too. Once they had all quenched their thirst, Bert said, “We should use the rest of the daylight to set up a home base we can defend, somewhere around here so it’s close to water.”

They all agreed that was a good idea, and they spent the rest of the day doing that. They transported all the useful supplies to the spot they picked out, and Gerard made himself useful by concealing them with plants and mud. He didn’t do too good a job of it though, not wanting to reveal just how good he was at camouflage. Eventually, the other tributes would turn on him, and he would need a few tricks up his sleeve.

Once their camp was set up, they tended their minor injuries and Bert started to talk about his plans for that night. Gerard quickly realised he wasn’t going to be getting any sleep. Instead, they were going to spend the night hunting down the other tributes who were still alive. They ate a small meal as the sun set, and shortly after that when the sky was fully dark, the anthem of Panem began to play. They all watched expectantly as a hovercraft flew across the sky, displaying on its bottom the images of the tributes who had died that day. The Gamemakers did this every night; provided a recap of the tributes who had died so that the ones who remained knew who they still had to face. Gerard watched, although he already knew who all the dead tributes were. 

They set out once the recap was over. Bert ordered the girl from District 4, Annie, and Jepha to stay back at the camp and guard the supplies. He gave Gerard a challenging glance, and Gerard realised that he was being put to some sort of test. To see if he’d been lucky earlier, with Joe? To see if he would do what he was told or make a fuss, to see if he could kill in cold blood, maybe. Gerard wasn’t sure.

Amongst the supplies, they had found two pairs of night vision goggles. Gerard hadn’t realised that that was what they were, but Bert had explained when he’d claimed a pair for himself. Keltie, the other District 2 tribute, took the other pair, and Gerard and Ashlee went without, lighting torches for themselves instead.

It was impossible to follow tracks in the dark, however, so they ended up wandering aimlessly for what felt like hours. In fact, it probably was hours. The moon had certainly moved well across the sky by the time anything interesting happened.

The interesting thing was the scent of smoke and the distant flicker of a campfire’s flames. Some foolish tribute had lit a fire to keep the cold of the night at bay. Bert perked up and stalked towards the fire, readying his sword. Gerard followed, feeling sick. He didn’t want to watch anyone get killed, but if he wanted any chance of staying alive himself, he had to convince the others, especially Bert, that he was worth keeping around. If he wanted to do that, he couldn’t appear weak, or squeamish.

They could see the tribute clearly in the firelight. It was the girl from District 9. Gerard couldn’t remember her name, but she had dark hair and an infectious smile. She seemed nervous, sitting there. When Bert stepped into her view, she pleaded, but he didn’t listen. With his sword, he slashed a deep wound across her side when she tried to run. She screamed horribly and fell to the ground. She kept trying to crawl away until Bert drove his sword through her stomach.

Ashlee and Keltie raced forward to grab the few supplies the girl had had with her. Then they moved several yards away and waited under a tree for the cannon to confirm the girl’s death. They waited for several long minutes, but nothing happened.

“Maybe one of us should go back, finish her off,” Ashlee suggested.

“She’s finished!” Bert snapped. “I know what I’m doing. Just wait.”

“If you’d done it properly, she’d be dead by now.”

Gerard wanted to kill all of them. The girl had been unconscious when they’d taken the few items she’d been carrying, and bleeding heavily, but he didn’t think she was close to dying yet. She’d be lying there in pain for hours. Finally, he couldn’t stand the bickering any more.

“We’re wasting time,” he snapped. “I’ll go check on her.”

He stalked through the trees back to where the girl’s body lay. It was a relief to get away from the other three, even though it was to do a very unpleasant task. Gerard found the girl and leaned down to check for a pulse. It was there, fast and weak though it was. He wondered if he could actually bring himself to change that. It was different to killing Joe. He’d been fighting for his life then. Of course, he still was fighting for his life. For this girl to live, Gerard would have to die, as well as Bert and Ashlee, Keltie and Jepha and Annie. All the others. Frank, too. Only one of them would get to survive this. Oddly enough, it took only that piece of rationalisation for Gerard to put his knife to the girl’s throat. His hand shook, and it took several seconds before he could find the right amount of force to drive it home, but eventually he did. Blood gushed over his hands, warm and sticky. He nearly lost the contents of his stomach, but managed to control the urge. The cannon confirmed that he had successfully taken his second life, and he stumbled back towards the others.

“Was she dead?” asked Bert.

“No, but she is now,” Gerard said, disgust making his voice harsh. “Come on.”

***********

They didn’t find anyone else that night, and eventually Bert declared that they should return to camp and rest. They got back and Bert assigned a watch schedule, and after that they all went to lie down, except for Annie who had the first watch.

It took Gerard a long time to fall asleep. He figured he was about as safe as he could be. The others wouldn’t kill him when they had yet to get any useful information out of him. He still had trouble relaxing enough to fall asleep.

In the morning, once everyone was awake and had had something to eat, Bert began talking about his plans for the day. He wanted them to get on the move again, and try to track tributes in the other direction from where they’d explored last night. He instructed Keltie and Ashlee to stay behind and guard the camp. 

Gerard wondered why Bert had chosen him to come along, instead of one of the girls who would probably be more useful. He puzzled over it, but as they walked along, Bert asked him, “Which way do you think Frank would have gone?” and he understood. Frank represented the biggest threat to the career tributes. His score was the highest, and none of the career tributes had any idea how he’d done it. Gerard was simply a source of information to Bert.

“He would try to find water,” Gerard mused. “He might have come this way, I guess.”

They walked for some time, but found no promising tracks. Gerard wondered if tracking was something Bert and the other tributes had ever learned about. He certainly hadn’t, but he knew Frank was a good tracker. Maybe the career tributes had focused on combat techniques so much that they had never bothered to study anything else. Gerard wanted to ask, but couldn’t think how to phrase the question without making it sound like he thought Bert was getting them lost, and he didn’t want to make Bert mad. Bert kind of scared him. 

In the short time he’d been with the career tributes, he’d found that they weren’t quite like he’d imagined them. They weren’t monsters, they knew how to have conversations and make jokes, how to smile and laugh. He was sure they could all kill as easily as he could knead dough, but they’d been raised to fight like he’d been raised to bake. 

They eventually started to circle around and make their way back to the camp. Bert scratched signs onto the trunks of several trees with the tip of his knife as they went, explaining that he was keeping track of where they’d been and what they’d found. Gerard didn’t quite understand, but was impressed nonetheless. Maybe Bert did know what he was doing. They all began to grow weary as the trek continued, but Bert distracted them with a story. Granted, it was a story about the time he’d dislocated both his shoulders in training once, back in District 2, but Jepha and Annie seemed to find it funny.

It surprised Gerard to see Annie laugh, actually. She’d said not a word to him since he’d joined the group, and she’d barely spoken to any of the others either. He wondered if she’d known Joe well.

Their path back to the camp took them past the Cornucopia. They were just reaching the edge of the clearing when Bert raised a hand, signalling the group to stop. He pointed and Gerard looked to see a small boy doing something around one of the platforms that had raised the tributes into the arena. Gerard’s heart sank. He knew it was inevitable, but he didn’t want to witness any more horrible deaths.

Bert led the group around the edge of the clearing closer to the boy. They were able to keep out of sight for some time, but eventually the boy spotted them. He froze for a second, like a rabbit trying to make itself invisible, but then he ran. Bert chased after him with a terrifying shout, and so did Jepha and Annie. Gerard followed half heartedly, but he stopped when he reached the platform to see if he could figure out what the kid had been doing. If it gave him an excuse to not see him die, he would take it.

The kid had been digging in the dirt around the platform, which Gerard thought odd. The only things down there were the landmines which were used to prevent tributes from leaving their mark too soon. But the landmines were all deactivated after the Games started. Unless the kid knew how to reactivate them. 

Gerard bolted in the same direction as Bert had, shouting “Wait! Wait!” He caught up with them quickly. Bert had the kid pinned on the ground, his sword poised above his throat. “Don’t!” Gerard gasped when he got close. “Don’t kill him!”

Bert looked at him like he’d said something really stupid. “Killing people is why we’re here, Gerard. We don’t go home until there’s only one of us left.”

Gerard knew that, but alliances happened for a reason. Because people were stronger when they shared their skills. “He knows how to reactivate the landmines.”

It took a second for Bert to understand, but Gerard could see the moment when it clicked. He looked back at the kid on the ground. “Is that true?” he demanded.

“I’m not... I think so,” the kid said nervously. Gerard felt bad for him. He recognised him now as one of the District 3 tributes. He was only fourteen, younger than most of them.

“Yeah, well, you better hope you’re right,” Bert said, pulling him to his feet.

They spent the afternoon digging up landmines. The kid tentatively tinkered with one of them until he announced that he’d got it working. Then they got to work moving the supplies and digging holes for the reactivated landmines.

It was a relief to have another tribute around who hadn’t been raised for this. District 3 was not a wealthy district. They had factories there, Gerard knew. The kid’s name was Brendon, and his whole family had worked in a factory which made electrical appliances. He knew an awful lot about gadgets.

It was also nice to have someone else around who could talk as much as Gerard could, and didn’t seem to mind his own chattiness. Brendon was the youngest in his family, and the only one still young enough for the reaping. He talked about his parents, brothers and sisters, with a tone of soft longing in his voice.

Late in the afternoon, they noticed a huge plume of smoke going up some distance away. It was the most interesting thing to have happened for several hours, so Bert instructed Brendon to stay behind and keep setting up the defences for their supplies, and led the rest of them off in the direction of the fire. It took quite a long time to get there. As they travelled, they spread out slightly, and Gerard found himself walking beside Ashlee.

“Bert thinks you’re going to tell us something useful about Frank,” she said abruptly.

“Oh?” Gerard replied noncommittally.

“Yeah, but personally, I don’t think you know a damn thing.” She gave him a challenging look, and Gerard gulped.

“Well,” he said. “Maybe I do know something, and maybe I don’t. You don’t know.”

“Oh, please,” she laughed. “Don’t bother. I don’t care what you do or don’t know. As far as I’m concerned, you’re as good as dead anyway. The only reason Bert is so concerned about Frank is that he’s an unexpected threat. If he wants to waste all his energy worrying about Frank instead of people who are right here, I say let him.”

That was interesting, but Gerard had to wonder why Ashlee was basically telling him she intended to betray Bert. Unless the inevitability of betrayal was so accepted among the group that it wasn’t even really a secret.

“So,” Ashlee asked, “Did you really think that you could win?”

“Huh?”

“You volunteered, right? Did you really think you could win?”

“Oh...” Gerard wondered what to say. It seemed like answering honestly would be admitting weakness, but on the other hand, no one was going to be fooled into thinking he was any kind of threat. “No?”

“Oh.” Ashlee seemed unsure what to say. “Then why did you volunteer?”

“Um...” Gerard looked at Ashlee and nearly tripped over a branch. “They drew my brother Mikey’s name,” he explained. Surely Ashlee had watched his interview? “I volunteered because I didn’t want him to die.”

“Huh.” Ashlee seemed genuinely surprised by his answer. “That’s what people said, but I thought there must be something else to it. I have a sister, but I don’t think I would have volunteered for her, if I wasn’t planning to volunteer anyway. Of course,” she added as an afterthought, “In District One, everyone knows who’s going to volunteer before the draw even happens.”

Gerard nodded his understanding. “Why did you volunteer?” he asked.

Ashlee gave him a look as though she thought him rather dim. “Because I’m going to win,” she said simply. 

“But, I mean, you’ve trained for this, right? Sometime, you made a decision to commit to the Games, and prepare for them, long before you volunteered, right?”

Ashlee shrugged. “Mom and Dad put me in training when I was six,” she said. “I always knew I’d end up here.”

“Your parents pushed you into this?” Gerard asked, horrified.

“What?” said Ashlee. “Better me, who has a shot, than some weak kid who’s only good for getting stabbed five minutes in. That’s the problem with you other districts,” she continued. “You just take what you’re given, but you don’t try to make the most of it. We,” she waved a hand indicating herself and the other career tributes, “Know how to cope with things. Send in tributes who are prepared and they have a much better chance of coming back.”

“But only one comes back,” Gerard protested. It didn’t matter how well prepared they were, the Gamemakers were still going to force them to fight until only one person was left.

“Yes,” Ashlee answered, “And I’m going to be that one.”

Gerard backed down then, deciding not to disturb Ashlee’s confidence. They were passing through a part of the woods which had been scorched by the fire. A few tree trunks were still flickering with flames, and smoke hung in the air making it hard to breathe. They walked a little further and reached a spot where the devastation of the fire abruptly ended. Gerard looked around suspiciously. It couldn’t be natural. Gamemakers could do things like this; make a fire or other natural disaster which was confined to just one part of the arena. That would mean that it had been set off to deliberately target someone.

Gerard was wondering who that might be when Bert gave a yell. He pointed up into a tree and Gerard looked up to see Frank, perched high up in the branches. His heart leaped into his throat. Seeing Frank here wasn’t good. He was outnumbered and didn’t appear to be armed, and judging from the scorched state of his clothes, he was also quite likely injured. Even so, Gerard felt a stupid rush of emotion at seeing him, no matter how much he tried to remind himself that it wasn’t good news.

“Hi there,” Frank called with a cheery wave.

“Hi yourself,” Bert called back. “Listen, there’s no point making this difficult. Just come down.”

“Nah,” Frank answered. “I think I’m good up here.”

Bert seemed frustrated, but he gave Jepha a look and the other man began climbing the tree. Gerard watched nervously. He started to worry, but as Jepha got higher, to where the tree’s branches were thinner, it became clear that he was too heavy to climb as high as Frank had. He would never have guessed that Frank’s relative scrawniness would end up being an advantage.

Jepha climbed back down, and Ashlee stepped forward, drawing her bow. “I’ll take care of him,” she said confidently. Gerard began to worry all over again, but his earlier prediction turned out to be correct. Ashlee wasn’t a good enough shot to hit Frank. Her arrow struck the trunk of the tree, and Frank plucked it free and waved it at her. Cheeky little shit, Gerard thought admiringly.

He wondered what would happen next, now that they had Frank trapped but he was out of reach. He didn’t think Bert would agree to walk away, and as time passed and Frank continued to evade them, Gerard started to worry that Bert would suggest something drastic, like setting fire to the tree.

“Let him stay up there,” Gerard said at last, just when Bert seemed about to lose his patience. “We can wait him out. He’ll have to come down sometime.”

Bert agreed to that, which was a slight relief, but really it only put off the inevitable confrontation. If it had been difficult to get to sleep the previous night, it was impossible now. Gerard dozed on and off, but he was sure he spent most of the night awake. It was probably that which saved his life. When dawn was just breaking, he was the first person to hear something crashing down from the treetops, and the first person to react. He was on his feet before he realised what it was, and running away the second he did.

It was a nest. A wasp’s nest, or, more precisely, a nest of tracker jackers. They were much worse than wasps. They were far more poisonous, and their venom could cause vivid hallucinations. Not only that, they were much more aggressive. Gerard knew there was no way he could outrun them; the wasps would chase him and he would die, but...

“The lake! Run to the lake!” he heard Bert shout. Right. The lake. The wasps wouldn’t follow them into the water. If they could get that far, they would be safe. Gerard tried to push himself to go faster. He could see the glitter of the water reflected through the trees, but at the same time, he felt a sharp sting on his chest, and then another on his face. Some of the insects had caught him. He swatted at them and reached the shore of the lake, launching himself into the air and crashing into the water. He dived and stayed down as long as he could, until his lungs hurt and his head swam in a way that might have been caused by the lack of oxygen or the tracker jacker stings. He swam to the surface and gulped air, looking around frantically for more of the insects. He heard a buzz and dived again, not managing to stay down quite as long this time.

When he resurfaced it was quiet. He could see Bert swimming farther out, and Keltie was a little way to his left. He couldn’t see Jepha or Ashlee.

Now that the threat was gone, there was one thing on Gerard’s mind. Frank. He doubted that the nest falling had been an accident. He thought Frank must have found it and dropped it on them deliberately. If he had, that was an incredibly dangerous thing to do. Gerard wasn’t sure he could have managed it without being stung himself.

He reached the edge of the lake. As he climbed onto the shore, the ground tilted alarmingly. Gerard reminded himself that it was just a hallucination from the stings, and tried to walk without falling over. He reached the place where they had spent the night. There was Ashlee, lying on the ground, her limbs swollen and grotesque, her face unrecognisable. Frank was crouched over her body. Why hadn’t he run?

“What are you doing here?” Gerard demanded.

Frank looked around and Gerard that he was trying to pry Ashlee’s bow from her hands. Of course. When Ashlee’s body was removed from the arena, the bow would be taken with it, and there would go Frank’s best chance of surviving. It was still a stupid risk. Gerard heard footsteps approaching from behind him. Without bothering to look and see who it was, he shoved at Frank, shouting “Run!”

Frank finally got the bow loose and slung the quiver of arrows over his shoulder. He started to run away, weaving slightly from side to side. Gerard wondered he was hallucinating the way Frank was running, or if Frank was having hallucinations of his own. He tried to put that aside, though, and look behind him to see who had appeared.

It was Bert, holding his sword, and Gerard could already see several stings swelling up hugely on his arms. “You’ve been helping him the whole time,” he snarled, lifting the sword to strike. Gerard tried to back away, but Bert suddenly seemed to be twenty feet tall, and there was nowhere safe to go. He threw himself backwards as Bert swung, and the strike that had been meant to disembowel him instead cut deeply into his leg. He screamed with pain and dropped to the ground. Bert lifted up the sword again, but as Gerard watched it turned into a snake and Bert fell over. He writhed on the ground and to Gerard’s eyes it looked like he was covered in insects.

Gerard watched in fascination for a few moments before remembering that it wasn’t real. He had to get away while he still could.

He dragged himself across the ground on his hands and one good leg. It hurt, and it was hard to move when the ground didn’t look the same from one minute to the next. At one point, Gerard thought he was crossing ground which was covered in a layer of feathers in every colour of the rainbow. Soon after that, he pushed through a clump of bushes which bore, instead of flowers, tiny bells which chimed as he went past. A bird swooped down towards him. It looked tiny at first, but as it got close it seemed to fill the whole world, and he could see that it was covered in scales. The creature breathed a plume of fire in his direction and he ducked. He reminded himself that it wasn’t real, but it was impossible to tell what was.

He reached a stream and followed it a short way, but eventually he had to stop. He tried to crawl in between some bushes for concealment, but he had no idea if they were even there.

Once he felt relatively safe and stopped trying desperately to get farther away from Bert, the hallucinations increased in severity. He saw Mikey lying in the street back in District 12, bloody and screaming. He tried to move towards him, but his leg caught fire and was suddenly twice as big as the rest of him. Mikey disappeared and in his place was Frank. He looked down at Gerard with a gentle smile. He leaned down and put his hand against Gerard’s face, whispering things which Gerard couldn’t quite understand, but which sounded sweet. 

Frank stayed with Gerard for a while, but eventually he melted away. Literally melted, like a candle set too close to the fire. For a long time, Gerard imagined he could still see the shape of Frank’s face on the ground. The hallucinations came faster and more frightening, and all he could do was try not to lose his mind.

*********

Later on, Gerard opened his eyes and the grass was green. The sky was blue and he could hear birds singing, making normal bird sounds. The worst effects of the tracker jacker venom seemed to have worn off.

He tried to sit up and take a better look at his leg. Moving started it hurting again, sharp hot pain racing down his leg and right up his spine. He picked at the torn edges of his pants, but his leg was too much of a mess to get a good idea of what was going on. It had stopped bleeding, at least, or he would have already bled to death. He tentatively tried to move it with the vague idea of adjusting his pants to get a better look, but he quickly learned that that was a very bad idea.

So, doing anything with his leg could be ruled out, but he might be able to move somewhere where he could hide. If Bert and the rest of the career tributes were recovering from the tracker jacker stings as well, they might come looking for him. They might not bother, but he couldn’t take the chance.

Crawling was agonising. He followed the stream, because he realised quickly that he wasn’t going to be up to moving around for quite some time, and he was going to need a source of water nearby. He dragged himself along the bank until the throbbing in his leg grew alarming in its intensity, and then he dragged himself into the stream itself. It was a good idea. The cold water numbed the pain in his leg, and it was much easier to propel himself along. He let himself float in the shallow water and dragged himself upstream against the gentle current. Eventually, the stream widened and the banks grew low and muddy. The cold of the water had gone from being soothing to uncomfortable, so he dragged himself onto the bank and surveyed the area.

It was pretty unremarkable, as far as hiding places went, but maybe that was for the best. If he could find a way to conceal himself, the location wouldn’t stand out to anyone looking for him. He rubbed his muddy hands on his clothes and tried to come up with a plan.

***********

It was a dull, long day, with little to distract Gerard from the pain. He spent it drinking as much water as he could, and trying to wash his leg clean in the stream. He didn’t have much success. Touching the wound hurt a lot, and in any case he was reluctant to mess with it too much in case it started bleeding again. He had no medical supplies, so the best thing he could do was probably keep it clean and leave it alone apart from that. By the end of the day, however, he was definitely feverish.

The anthem played, but there was no follow up of newly dead tributes faces. Gerard concealed himself as well as he could with mud and leaves, and tried to rest. His sleep was fitful, and when morning arrived he still felt tired.

He spent another day doing nothing, but he could feel himself getting weaker. His fever was getting worse. He drank so much water that he felt bloated, but it didn’t help. The most interesting thing to happen all day was the series of massive explosions he heard coming from the lake. Not too long after there was a cannon shot, and Gerard spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what had happened.

It was probably the landmines that Brendon had dug up to trap the supplies with. Perhaps someone had been careless enough to try to steal the career tributes’ food. Gerard hoped it wasn’t Frank. 

He waited all day for the recap which would reveal who had died. He had been secretly hoping that it was Bert or one of the other career tributes, and dreading the possibility that it was Frank. It hadn’t occurred to him to worry about Brendon, but that was the face he saw projected on the underside of the hovercraft.

Perhaps he’d been tweaking the trap and something had gone wrong. Or maybe, once it was set off, the career tributes had decided they didn’t need Brendon any more. Gerard was surprised to feel a lump in his throat. He’d barely known Brendon at all, but he’d liked him better than anyone else he’d met in the arena. 

The next day, Gerard realised that he was in big trouble. Moving even a little required more effort than he could give. He knew he should keep drinking, but his hands were too heavy to lift. His leg smelled bad, and his head felt foggy. At some point in the afternoon, he noticed that the sun had moved across the horizon in what felt like only a few minutes, and he realised he was drifting in and out of consciousness.

It was okay. He tried to tell himself that, and believe it. Alicia hadn’t sent him any medicine or supplies that would help, but he had to believe it was because she was diverting all those things to Frank, like they’d discussed. Frank still had a chance. Gerard would have had to die, anyway, for Frank to survive. It was better that it happen this way than for the two of them to be the final tributes and be forced to kill one another. That was something to be grateful for.

That night, Gerard watched the sky, and was sure he saw Jepha’s face. Jepha was dead. So was Jamia, the young girl from District 11. He tried to feel something, anything. He couldn’t; not pity for their deaths, not relief that with them gone, Frank was a little closer to victory. He still hadn’t worked up any emotion greater than mild detachment when the trumpets sounded, preceding an announcement. That was unusual, but at this stage in the game, to liven things up, the Gamemakers would sometimes hold a feast – they would deliver some supplies to a location and encourage the tributes to fight for them.

That wasn’t what was announced, however.

“Congratulations on reaching this stage of the game,” the announcer said. “We are pleased to announce that the Gamemakers have conferred, and agreed to a change in the rules for this portion of the Games.”

Now, that never happened. What rules the Hunger Games had had never changed, not in more than seventy years. Gerard listened and tried to understand what was happening.

“For the first time, we would like to announce that two victors may be recognised for the Hunger Games, provided both victors are from the same district.”

Gerard repeated and rearranged the words, trying but failing to find their meaning. The announcer helpfully repeated the rule change.

“The Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games may have two victors, if both victors were chosen from the same district.”

This time, Gerard was able to understand what the new rule meant, for the Games and for him personally. He and Frank could win together, if they both survived. It was no longer inevitable that one of them should die.

The knowledge was dizzying. Gerard had a lot of questions, about what it meant and why the Gamemakers had decided to allow such a thing. Thinking about them was far too hard, however. He was also aware that the announcement might cause Frank to try to find him. If he did, Gerard needed to make sure that he could be found, but also that he was concealed from everyone else. The mere thought of trying to ensure such a thing was overwhelming, and instead of doing anything about it, Gerard fell asleep.

He woke up a few times during the next day. When a bird landed nearby and started to sing. When a gust of wind blew some leaves onto his face. And finally, when he heard the sound of water splashing.

Gerard knew that meant something important, so he struggled to wake up enough to work out what he should do. He forced his eyes open and saw a figure walking up the stream. He tried to remain still while panicking, hoping that he was well concealed enough to avoid being noticed. A few moments later, the newcomer got near enough for Gerard to recognise him. It was Frank.

Gerard started to panic for a different reason. His throat was too dry for him to really talk, and he was so weak and plastered so thickly with mud that he couldn’t really move. “Frank,” he whispered. “Frank!” The sounds coming from his mouth were so soft he could barely hear them himself. He tried to lift his hands and they came free from the mud with a soft squelchy noise.

Frank saw his arm move, and for a minute Gerard thought he was going to run away. “Frank,” he whispered once more. Finally, Frank seemed to recognise him.

“Gerard!” he yelled, crossing the distance between them in a run. “I found you.” He dropped to the ground at Gerard’s side and looked at him. “You’re covered in mud,” he murmured in a tone which was almost awed.

“I am a bit,” Gerard agreed.

“Are you hurt? I heard Bert say something...”

“My leg,” Gerard answered, indicating the wound with a flicker of his fingers, all the movement he could manage. Frank wiped away some of the mud, and Gerard grimaced at the dull pain he awakened.

After studying the wound for a minute, Frank said, “I think this needs to be cleaned.”

Gerard managed to resist the urge to say “No kidding.” After being pushed and prodded by Frank into moving down to the stream, he was no longer in a joking mood anyway. He hadn’t realised how much pain he was avoiding by lying still. Every tiny movement sent a rush of burning pain up and down his leg. Moving the few feet to the water seemed to take an eternity.

Once they got there, Frank was a lot more effective at cleaning the wound than Gerard had been. It hurt a lot. As Frank put pressure on it, pus oozed out and he wiped it away. All Gerard had to do was lie still and try not to yell loud enough for the other tributes to find them. It was harder than he would have thought.

Finally, Frank seemed to decide that he had done as much as he could. He peeled off Gerard’s shirt and cleaned the rest of him. He had some leaves which he used to treat the tracker jacker stings, and it was a relief when that pain was gone, although before Gerard had barely noticed it what with the much greater pain of his leg.

Frank helped Gerard back into his shirt and then he scouted around the area, eventually coming back to say that he’d found a cave where they would be more sheltered. Getting up there was pure agony. It seemed to take hours, and when they finally did reach the mouth of the cave he did notice that the sun had moved in the sky.

Frank had a number of useful items with him, like a sleeping bag which he unzipped and laid over Gerard. He had food with him as well, which he shared, and bottled water. They drank what was left in the bottle and Frank went to refill it. Gerard promptly fell asleep.

He slept better than he had since he’d been injured, better than he had when he was with the career tributes. Better than he had since the games had begun. He trusted Frank to watch out for him like he couldn’t trust anyone else in the arena.

Frank woke him up a while later to make him drink and eat some more food. Gerard chewed listlessly at a piece of rabbit and enjoyed the chance to see Frank, alive and relatively unharmed. “I was worried about you,” he said.

“Me? I’m fine. I was worried about you, when I saw you were hanging out with the careers. That was risky.”

“Yeah,” Gerard agreed. “It was. I was pretty lucky to get away, I guess.”

Frank moved closer and let his fingers rest against Gerard’s jaw. “After the tracker jackers, I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. It was horrible.”

Gerard’s gaze met Frank’s and he leaned into the touch. “The day before yesterday there was this huge explosion, you must have heard it, and someone was killed,” he said. “I was afraid it was you.”

Frank looked uncomfortable. “That was me,” he said. “I blew up the career’s supplies.”

“You did what?” Gerard asked in wonder. “Oh, wow. That’s awesome.”

“It’s good news for us, yeah.” Frank seemed unhappy with the conversation topic. He leaned in closer to Gerard and brushed a kiss against his lips. Gerard instantly forgot what they’d been talking about. He kissed Frank back, drawing in the sensations, the taste of him. He could have done that all day, but there was a thud outside and Frank went to investigate.

He came back with a small pot attached to a silver parachute. “Alicia sent us a gift from a sponsor,” he said with some excitement. Gerard was pleased too.

“I haven’t received any gits yet,” he said. “What is it?”

“Really? I’ve had a few,” Frank said, inspecting the pot. It contained soup, which they shared. Gerard ate as much as he could, but he was still feeling weary from the day’s exertions. He hadn’t done much, just moved a few dozen yards to a cave and talked to Frank a bit, but it was enough to exhaust him. He drowsed until early evening, when Frank checked his wound again. He tried to appear positive and reassuring, but he really wasn’t, and Gerard didn’t need Frank’s expression to tell him that his leg was getting worse. It was a shame that, even after the rule change, it looked like Gerard still wasn’t going to be going home, but he felt too woozy to really feel anything strongly about it. He slept some more and was woken by the sound of the anthem. No one had died that day, but after the anthem ended the trumpets sounded, and there was an announcement which followed.

It was a feast, which was no surprise. At this late stage of the Games, they would all be low on supplies and the audience would be eager for some more excitement. Gerard figured he and Frank wouldn’t be tempted by the feast. With Frank and his bow, they could get their own food, and Gerard was in no shape to help him fight. They were better off staying away. But then the announcer added something else.

Each of them, he said, needed some item desperately, and those items would be placed in a pack at the Cornucopia at dawn, labelled with the relevant district number. Gerard looked at Frank, and could see that he’d arrived at the same thought. There was only one thing they desperately needed.

“Frank, no,” he said. “Don’t you dare. You’ll be killed, and then I’ll be left up here alone.” It was a low blow, but he didn’t want Frank putting himself at risk.

Frank glared at him. “I won’t be killed,” he said. “I’m no healer like my mother is, I can’t do anything more for your leg than I already have, and it’s not getting better. You need proper medicine.”

“I’ll be fine,” Gerard insisted. “I promise. But if you... If you go out there, I’ll follow you. I’ll follow you down to the Cornucopia, and Bert will probably kill me. You have to stay here.”

“If I stay here, you’re as good as dead!”

“Yeah, well, if you leave I still am, so I’d rather take the option which puts you in less danger.”

Frank glared at him and stalked out of the cave. Gerard lay on the ground and hoped that Frank would come around. Eventually Frank came back and seemed to be in a better mood. He’d even brought some more food with him. It was just berries that he’d mashed together in the pot that had held the soup, but he called it ‘dessert’ and made a big fuss, and Gerard played along.

The berries were sweet, much sweeter than any he’d ever had before. It occurred to Gerard to wonder if they were safe to eat, but he trusted Frank not to give him anything poisonous. He met Frank’s eyes as he ate, and said, “Are you going to have some?”

“I did already,” Frank answered, but there was something evasive in his tone, and the last mouthful Gerard ate sat in his stomach like a stone. He felt sleepy, he realised. Not just tiredness caused by the fever, but an overwhelming weight on his eyelids forcing them down. Frank looked remorseful, Gerard thought when he looked at him, but that didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to forgive Frank for this.

Frank was there when he woke up, which was reassuring for all of a minute until he noticed the blood which covered his face. “What happened?” he asked.

Frank didn’t answer, instead pulling a hypodermic needle out of a small pack and grabbing Gerard’s arm. “What are you doing?” Gerard asked nervously. He tried to pull his arm away, but he was too weak. Before he had time to freak out, Frank had pushed the needle point into his arm and depressed the plunger. Gerard yelped and struggled a bit, but it was over after a few seconds.

“Ow,” Gerard grumbled, feeling his arm gingerly. “Do you think you could warn me next time?”

“Would that have helped?”

Gerard looked at the empty needle, shuddered and looked away. “Probably not.” He turned back to Frank. “What happened to you?”

“Keltie threw a knife at me,” he said, feeling along the cut with his fingertips.

“Come here, let me have a look.” Gerard took over cleaning the wound. He was relieved to find that it wasn’t quite as bad as all the dried blood had suggested. “Is Keltie...?”

“She’s dead. Spencer killed her.”

“I knew he was someone to watch out for. It’s lucky you got away.”

“He let me go.”

“He what?”

“He let me go. Because I helped Jamia.” Frank didn’t seem to want to talk about it anymore, so Gerard let the subject drop.

“There’s only five of us left,” Gerard said instead.

“Yeah. Bert and Spencer, and whatshername from District Five.”

“I hope this medicine works.”

“Me too.”

“But Frank,” Gerard grabbed his arm and squeezed firmly. “You can’t do something like that again.”

Frank wouldn’t meet his gaze. He clenched his jaw and held himself stiffly, and Gerard shook him by the hand. “Seriously,” he said. “I know it all worked out okay, so now you think you did the right thing...”

“I _did_ do the right thing...”

“But you don’t get to make those sorts of decisions on my behalf. You drugged my food. It’s not okay.”

Frank’s shoulders slumped and he finally said, “Okay. Yeah, you’re right.”

Gerard nodded and laid back to rest some more.

It was a miserable day. Every time he woke up, it was to pouring rain and an icy chill in the air. They were out of food, but there was no chance of hunting in the terrible weather, so they went hungry. However, Gerard noticed each time he woke up that his head was clearer, that his fever was lower, and even the pain in his leg was lessened.

That night, when Gerard heard the anthem, he looked into the sky even though the cannon hadn’t sounded that day. He didn’t expect to see anything, but he was surprised to see Spencer’s face projected onto the underside of the hovercraft.

Frank wouldn’t believe him at first. “We must have missed the cannon in the storm,” Gerard said. He could see that Frank was quite upset about Spencer’s death, which he understood, but it had happened, and all Gerard could think was that they were a little bit closer to going home.

The next day, they went hunting. Gerard went along, knowing that he wasn’t going to be much use but not wanting to stay behind doing nothing. Frank had them travel for a couple of hours to reach a suitable spot. Gerard’s leg was much better, but it was still sore and the journey left it aching. He was just focusing on staying on his feet when Frank turned back to him.

“Do you have to walk so loud?”

“Huh?”

“You’re walking... you’re making so much noise. Try to be quieter.”

So Gerard tried to step lightly and place his feet carefully, but all Frank’s comment had achieved was to make him realise just how much noise he was actually making. He might have done better if his leg hadn’t been injured, but as it was he could see Frank tensing up each time he made a noise.

“Take off your shoes,” Frank suggested. “It will help.”

Gerard wasn’t so keen on that idea. “Listen,” he said, “Why don’t I stay here and try to gather some... plants. You can show me which ones. And then you can go off and get some meat. I know I’m scaring all the game away.”

Frank scowled. “What if Bert comes along while we’re separated?”

“We’ll just have to not get too far apart,” Gerard answered. “We need to get some food.”

Eventually, he persuaded Frank to show him some plants that would be safe to eat, and teach him a whistle that they could use to signal one another. Frank went off with his bow and Gerard started digging up roots. He dug up a good few and then started looking for berries. He found some that looked like the ones Frank had gathered earlier, and put them in a pile with the roots. He wandered a bit farther and found another patch of berries down near the stream. He returned to the clearing after that, and Frank was there.

“Where did you go?” Frank demanded, looking panicked.

“I was gathering berries down by the stream.”

“You didn’t answer my whistle. I thought something had happened to you.”

“Oh, I guess the stream blocked the sound out.”

Frank seemed to calm down slightly. He looked over to where Gerard had put the food, and said, “Is this all you’ve found?”

Gerard was getting tired of Frank’s constant sniping, so it took a great deal of restraint for him not to snap back a response. He looked over to the pile of food and frowned. “I had more than that.”

“Then where did it go?” Frank asked.

“I don’t know! I had more roots than that, and I had some berries as well.”

“What berries?”

“These.” Gerard held up the berries he’d collected by the stream for Frank’s inspection. Frank took one and examined it closely. As he was watching, the sound of the cannon startled Gerard. He spun around, wondering what had happened and who was behind it. As he looked around, he saw a hovercraft lift the body of the girl from District 5. Bert had to be somewhere nearby. He’d killed the girl, and now he was going to come after them.

“We have to get out of here,” he said urgently. “Bert can’t be far away.”

“It wasn’t Bert,” Frank answered.

“Then what was it?”

Frank didn’t answer. Instead, he held out the berries he’d taken from Gerard’s hand.

It turned out Gerard wasn’t as good at identifying berries as he’d thought. He knew he should see it as a good thing. They’d managed to trick the girl from District 5, when she might not have fallen for a trap they’d set deliberately. Gerard wanted to throw the remaining berries away, but Frank decided they should keep them on the off chance they could use the same trick on Bert. The idea was a lot more appealing than getting into a fight with him.

They went back to spend another night in the cave. Gerard slept for hours, exhausted, and when he awoke the next morning Frank was already packing up their few supplies.

“I think this is it,” he said. “There’s just us and Bert now. The Gamemakers will eventually do something to drive us together, and it will probably happen today.”

Gerard had to agree that that seemed likely. They packed everything up and left the cave, meaning to do a little more hunting while they still could. When they reached the stream, which had still been swollen with storm waters the previous day, they found that the bed was dry.

“This isn’t natural,” Frank said. “The Gamemakers are behind it.”

“They’re trying to make us go to the lake,” Gerard suggested, and Frank nodded.

They headed that way, finding as they went that every other spring and pond in the area had gone dry as well. Gerard was a little worried that the lake would be dry too; that they would be left out here to die of thirst, but of course the Gamemakers wouldn’t let that happen. It would be too boring.

It was a relief, anyway, to see the waters of the lake ahead of them, sparkling in the sunlight. They got to work refilling their water bottle and purifying the water with iodine, keeping their eyes open the whole time for signs of Bert. The scenery was calm and peaceful, and it made Gerard uneasy.

“Where is he?” he wondered. “Surely he’s somewhere nearby?”

Frank had no better ideas than he did. They took their refilled water and walked towards the Cornucopia, Frank holding his bow at the ready. Gerard was just about to make some comment about Bert’s absence, when Frank stiffened and drew his bow.

It was Bert, running towards them, his arms and legs pumping as fast as they would go. Frank shot, but the arrow bounced harmlessly off Bert’s chest and he didn’t change direction. “He’s wearing some kind of body armour,” Gerard realised. Frank readied another arrow, but before he could shoot, it became clear that Bert wasn’t running towards them. He was running away from a group of... creatures that swarmed out of the trees and loped across the ground with long strides. Frank and Gerard hesitated, then began to run as well.

They weren’t human. They were covered in fur and their legs didn’t move like people’s legs did. Gerard figured they had to be some kind of hybrid created by the Capitol, like the mockingjays and the tracker jackers. He’d never seen anything like them before.

With his leg still recovering, Gerard couldn’t keep up with Frank and Bert. He saw the moment when Frank realised he was falling behind and looked back, and waved at him frantically. “Go!” Gerard yelled. “Go!” Frank kept running. They raced after Bert who led them to the Cornucopia and started to climb it. Frank followed, and Gerard too once he reached it, hoping that the things chasing them wouldn’t be able to scale the smooth metal surface.

The creatures were right behind him as he reached the Cornucopia. He pulled himself onto the lowest part of it, but as he did so something sharp slashed his leg, the one that had already been hurt. He shouted and scrambled for the knife Frank had given him. He stabbed at the creature with it and tried to pull free of its grip. He cut the thing deeply around its jaw and it let him go, yelping in pain. He dragged himself up the horn, but his leg wasn’t working so well.

Frank helped him climb higher as the things clustered around the base of the Cornucopia. As they watched, one of them leaped up and landed just a few feet away. Its fur was dark, and so were its eyes. They almost looked familiar, Gerard thought somewhere in between gasping for breath and trying to scramble farther away. Frank took the creature out with an arrow, and they kept climbing.

The next one, with lighter brown hair and blue eyes, jumped much higher and landed just beside them. Again, Frank killed it with a single shot, but something seemed to have struck him. “Look at their eyes!” he said. Gerard looked. “Look at their collars!”

Gerard hadn’t realised it, but the things were wearing numbered collars. He saw one at the edge of the group with soft brown fur and wearing a collar with a ‘1’ inscribed on the tag. It was the eyes that shook him. He knew those eyes.

“It’s Ashlee!” he cried out. “It’s her eyes. What... how did they...?”

Frank didn’t bother to answer, shooting another of the things, a smaller one with dark fur. Jamia, Gerard guessed with a wince. 

They climbed the rest of the way up, sitting above the opening of the horn, high above the ground. Frank ripped off part of his shirt and pressed it to the cuts in Gerard’s leg, which were bleeding heavily. Gerard grimaced and added his own hands. When Frank was sure that he had it under control, he grabbed his bow and looked back towards the creatures below. Gerard watched anxiously. He was sure Frank could shoot well enough to defend them, but he was down to two arrows, and there were still more than a dozen of the things.

They had become so occupied with watching the creatures that they had forgotten about Bert. Gerard remembered when he felt Bert grab him from behind. He hauled Gerard up to stand at the edge of the Cornucopia and put his arm around Gerard’s neck, squeezing tight. Gerard struggled, but between the blood loss and the lack of oxygen, he had no strength. Frank had turned around and brought his arrow to bear on Bert, but Gerard was in the way.

“Let him go!” Frank yelled.

“Make me!” Bert answered. They stood frozen like that, neither of them able to break the standoff. Gerard tried to think what to do, and lifted his hand up to point to Bert’s arm, the one holding him in place. He tried to do it without Bert realising; Frank nodded his understanding and fired a second later.

The arrow hit Bert in the forearm and he pulled it away with a yell. Gerard ducked and shoved Bert with his shoulder; he teetered on the edge for a long second, his frightened eyes seeking Gerard out, and then he fell.

Frank grabbed Gerard as he tried to regain his balance, and together they watched Bert fall to the ground. The creatures knew straight away; they raced towards Bert and he fought them with nothing more than a knife and a scream of rage.

The fight lasted longer than Gerard would have thought. Bert took down a couple of the creatures; Gerard didn’t try too hard to figure out who they were. Who they had been. His body armour helped protect him, but eventually he dropped to the ground and the creatures jumped on him. He screamed again, in pain this time, in agony.

“Frank,” Gerard said as they began to drag him into the Cornucopia. “Frank, do something, they’re going to eat him alive.”

Frank nodded and took his final arrow. He waited until Bert was close, and then fired. The arrow struck him in one of his eyes. He seemed to twitch for a moment before going limp.

The creatures responded to some unknown signal and ran away, leaving Frank and Gerard, tired and triumphant, on top of the Cornucopia. They looked at one another, not knowing what to say or whether it could even be true.

“What happens now?” Gerard asked. “Do we have to move away from the body?”

Neither of them were sure, so Frank helped Gerard climb down and they walked back towards the lake. It was agonising for Gerard to walk on his leg, so they didn’t go very far. They reached that first arrow which had bounced off Bert’s armour, and Frank picked it up absently. They were close enough to see the hovercraft which came to collect Bert’s body, but still nothing happened.

At last, they heard trumpets. It was the same announcer as always, sounding as cheery as he always did.

“Congratulations to the final two contestants of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games. A closer examination of the rules has revealed that there may be only one winner. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favour.”

So that was it. With a chill, Gerard realised that they had never intended to let both him and Frank survive at all. They must have planned this all along, to manipulate the two of them into being the final two and then forcing them to kill one another. It would certainly be a dramatic spectacle for the audience. Well, whatever. He wasn’t going to have anything to do with that.

He took the knife from his belt and threw it away from him. At the same time, Frank had drawn his bow and taken aim at Gerard. Gerard could see his self loathing when he realised what Gerard was doing. He didn’t want Frank to feel that way, though. He should survive. All along, Gerard had been trying to make sure that Frank survived.

“It’s okay,” he said, but then he realised that that was stupid and meaningless. It wouldn’t be okay if Frank killed him. If their positions were reversed, he wouldn’t be okay with having to kill Frank. He’d never forgive himself. And anyway, there was no need for Frank to have to kill him at all.

“Look,” he said, pulling away the makeshift bandages from his leg. The bleeding continued, not as heavily as before, but bad enough. “It won’t take long.”

“No!” said Frank. “Stop that.” He tried to cover the wound up again, but Gerard pushed his hands away. 

“Let it happen,” he said. “This is the best way, you know. They have to have a victor.”

Frank looked at him like he’d said something important. “They have to have a victor,” he repeated.

“Yeah, Frank. That’s you.”

“No.” Frank looked down and fumbled at his belt, removing a pouch from it. It was the one which held the berries in it, and as Gerard watched, he stuck his hand in and took some out. He held the pouch out to Gerard, who looked at it not quite comprehending. “Come on,” Frank urged. “You’re right. They have to have a victor. If we’re both dead, what are they going to do?”

Gerard understood then, and he took a few berries for himself. “Are you sure this is going to work?” he wondered, and Frank nodded frantically.

“Yeah, yeah it will. Come on. On three?”

“Yeah, on three. One?” Gerard shifted his weight and pain jolted through his leg. He tried to balance himself better, but the ground was uneven and the grass was dewy and slippery. He put his free hand on Frank’s shoulder. 

“Two,” said Frank. A faint breeze blew strands of his hair across his face. The light reflected off them, breaking into thousands of colours. 

“Three,” Gerard finished. He lifted his hand and dropped the berries into his mouth, trying not to break them with his teeth or swallow any of the juice. He’d barely closed his mouth when the voice of the announcer returned.

“Stop. Stop! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our victors, Frank Iero and Gerard Way!”

Gerard spat out the berries and rinsed his mouth with water. Frank did the same, and then they heard the sound of a hovercraft approaching. This one dropped a ladder which they grabbed hold of, and it began lifting them up. Gerard started to feel weak, and it was only Frank’s tight grip that kept him from falling. He didn’t remember getting inside the hovercraft. He just remembered Frank’s face, concerned and fearful.

When he woke up, much later, Frank was nowhere in sight. Gerard looked around searching for him. He was in a room which contained only the bed he was lying on and a bench along one wall which held what he supposed were medical instruments. He tried to sit up and found that he could move his limbs, even the leg that had been hurt, but a strap around his stomach was keeping him on the bed. He laid back down and promptly went back to sleep.

When he finally woke up properly, Alicia was there, sitting by his bed. The first thing Gerard did was ask about Frank.

“He’s fine,” Alicia said. “He’s in better shape than you.”

“Can I see him?”

“They want your reunion to happen on camera. Sorry. But he says you should hurry up and get better.”

“He would say that,” Gerard answered

A final interview with the victor was always held a week after the end of the Games. That morning, Gerard met with his stylist team one more time and they prepared him for his appearance. He showed no sign of his time in the arena, aside from the weight he’d lost. Even his scars were gone, not just the ones he’d received in the games, but the old burn scars from working in the bakery too. His leg looked as though it had never been injured. The change had shocked him when he’d first noticed, but his stylists seemed to notice nothing unusual about it, so he didn’t mention it.

Patrick had made yet another outfit for him. This time it was tight fitting black trousers worn under a flowing shirt in a shimmery light coloured fabric. It looked white, but where it caught the light it gleamed in shades of yellow and orange. Gerard caught sight of himself in the mirror, and barely recognised what he saw. He looked handsome and suave, like someone who would have to fend off romantic advances with a stick.

“Wow,” he murmured. “Patrick, I...”

“Don’t mention it,” Patrick said gruffly. “Just go out there and be yourself. Soon you’ll be going home.”

Gerard wasn’t satisfied with that, though, so he grabbed Patrick and pulled him into a hug. “Thank you,” he said. “If you hadn’t made us stand out, this could never have happened. Thank you.”

Patrick nodded and awkwardly patted his shoulder, and Gerard finally let him go.

He and Frank were transported to the interview venue in separate cars, so that there was no chance of them seeing one another and spoiling the much anticipated reunion. Once they arrived, Gerard was shown where he was to wait, and he sat nervously, trying not to bite his perfectly manicured nails.

The wait wasn’t so long. He could hear the muffled sound of Brian Schechter saying things and the crowd responding with cheers and applause, although he couldn’t make out the actual words. Then, finally, the platform he’d been positioned on began to lift him up to the stage.

At first the light was blinding. Gerard blinked and when his vision cleared the first thing he saw was Frank.

Patrick had dressed him in an outfit similar to Gerard’s; dark trousers and a loose shirt. Frank’s shirt, though, was untucked and hung to mid thigh. The sleeves ended at the elbow, and it was gathered loosely at the waist with a cord. It shone with the same soft light that Gerard’s did, but the effect was very different. It emphasised Frank’s small stature and made him look younger than he actually was.

Still, seeing him released something inside Gerard, and he darted across the stage to be by Frank’s side. When they kissed, he didn’t care that there were thousands of people watching. He didn’t even think about the fact that Mikey and his parents were certainly watching this, back in District 12. Why would he think about any of that, when Frank was right here?

A small sofa had been set on the stage, and Gerard sat on it, Frank curling up next to him and leaning his head on Gerard’s shoulder. Gerard put his arm around Frank’s shoulders. Frank had never been this affectionate during the Games, but perhaps now that their struggle for survival was over, he was letting himself show his emotions a bit more.

Once they were settled, Brian started the interview, asking them both questions about every stage of the games; how they felt, what they thought, what they were going to do now that it was all over.

“Gerard,” Brian asked, leaning in close, “What were you thinking about when you first joined up with the tributes from Districts One, Two and Four?”

“That I didn’t want to die,” Gerard answered honestly. “But then... I knew they were trying to get me to tell them about Frank, and I had to do what I could to protect him.”

Brian nodded and the crowd went ‘Aww’. Brian looked over to Frank and said, “Frank, when did you first realise you were in love with Gerard?”

Frank looked at Brian like a rabbit that had just scented a dog. “Uhhh...” he said, blinking rapidly. “I guess, it was when... when he saved me from Bert, after the tracker jackers. He risked his life for me. He nearly died.”

“Of course!” Brian agreed enthusiastically. “And it must have convinced you of how deep his feelings really ran.”

“Yeah,” Frank agreed after a brief pause. 

After the interview came the three hour replay of the games’ highlights. Gerard had been dreading this. They watched the bloodiest parts of the first day, including the part where he killed Joe. A lot of attention was paid to him teaming up with the Careers. It was uncomfortable to see from the outside how much of a love struck fool he seemed to be, taking ridiculous risks just to give Frank the best chance he could. Frank, on the other hand, was exactly the sort of person who people would bet on in the games. Smart, skilled at surviving, focused on keeping himself alive rather than worrying about what other people were doing. It wasn’t until the rule change was announced that Frank gave any sign he was worried about Gerard at all. Then Gerard got to see how he searched and searched, how he risked himself to get the medicine. He started to see how the story of their love had entranced the audience so much that they had both been allowed to survive.

At last, it was over and Frank and Gerard were allowed to return to the training centre. Once again, Gerard found it difficult to sleep. It was excitement this time, rather than fear. The next day, they would be going home.

*********

It was the same train that carried them, or one very much like it. Gerard watched out the window as they passed from one district to the next, able to appreciate the view as he hadn’t the first time he’d seen it. 

He walked along the train back to his room, and came across Frank and Alicia talking.

“You did great,” Alicia was saying. “You were just right.”

“Just right at what?” Gerard asked. He was only mildly interested at first, but then Frank turned around with a startled expression on his face, and Gerard realised that there was something Frank didn’t want him to know. “Frank?” he asked hesitantly.

Alicia left them then, with a significant look towards Frank. Frank grimaced and led Gerard down to his compartment where they could talk privately.

“We’re in trouble,” Frank whispered once the door was closed. “They’re angry at us for the thing with the berries. The Gamemakers, President Korse. We’re in deep shit.”

“Oh,” Gerard said. It made sense. He should have thought of it; shouldn’t have been naive enough to believe their problems would end with the game.

“Alicia was warning me that we have to convince them we’re really in love, so much that it drove us to use the berries out of desperation.”

“ _Really_ in love?” Gerard asked with a sinking feeling.

“We have to make them believe, Gerard, or they’ll do something horrible to us!”

“Okay, Frank,” Gerard said, trying to calm him down. “Okay. I get that. Why didn’t anyone tell me about this before? I could have screwed everything up.”

“No.” Frank shook his head, looking uncomfortable. “I... Alicia said that you were, that you didn’t have to fake it.”

“That _I_ didn’t have to fake it?” Gerard asked. He stood up and moved away from Frank.

“Gerard-”

“I didn’t have to fake it, of course. Alicia knew that. But you did, right? You were faking it.” Gerard’s voice broke a little and he swallowed harshly, trying to hide the pain he was in.

“It’s not like... come on, Gerard, that’s not fair!”

“Right. Sorry. Wouldn’t want to be unfair to you.”

“In the past few weeks I’ve been a bit busy trying not to die to think much about romance.”

“Right.” Now Gerard felt like an asshole. “I’m sorry... I just thought...”

“I know.” Frank ran a hand through his hair. “Fuck, this is so unfair,” he said. “I wish we could have got to know one another, you know, normally. Without the Games. Now, we won’t get that chance. We can’t just go out like two normal people. We’ll never have normal lives now.”

Frank had obviously been thinking about this a lot more than Gerard had. It was true, their lives were going to be different. They would never want for money again. Gerard’s parents could give up the bakery, if they wanted. They would be able to move out of their little house and into one of the mansions in the Victor’s Village, where Alicia lived.

But on the other hand, their lives were going to be so much more public, now. In six months, they would have to go on the victor’s tour through the other districts, to celebrate their win. And in a year, they would have to return to the Capitol and mentor two new tributes through another Game. They couldn’t just go out and get to know one another and fall in love like two ordinary people, because everyone thought they already had. 

Gerard straightened his spine and once again reached for the will to say something he really didn’t want to say. It should have been easier than volunteering at the Reaping, but it wasn’t. “I don’t want to make you feel... uncomfortable, or pressured,” he said. “I’ll leave you alone. I promise, I won’t bother you again.”

He went back to his own compartment and wallowed in misery for the rest of the journey. He tried not to hope that Frank would come and talk to him, but he was betrayed by a stab of disappointment every time he heard footsteps go past his door without stopping.

It was just after dawn when the train reached District 12. It seemed like the entire district was there, cheering and waving banners. Frank and Gerard disembarked the train together, and Gerard resolutely kept his gaze turned away from Frank. It was easy to do when he caught sight of his family. Mikey was there. He looked different, somehow. Gerard knew it was really him who had changed, not Mikey, but it didn’t seem that way when his brother hugged him tight around the waist and said, “I’m so mad at you. So mad. You don’t even know.”

His parents were both crying, and Gerard wished they’d stop. He was happy; he wanted to be happy.

They moved into a huge, beautiful house in the Victor’s Village. Alicia lived next door, and Frank and his mother lived on her other side. Gerard was worried about having to see Frank all the time and being in his way, but it didn’t turn out quite like that. He saw Alicia a lot more than Frank. She had better refreshments and didn’t mind sharing.

His mother and father kept running their bakery, but they were able to hire the help they needed now and Gerard and Mikey didn’t have to work there any more if they didn’t want to. Gerard didn’t. The new house had a cellar which Gerard thought had been intended for storage, but he took it over instead and spent hours down there, painting and drawing. The light wasn’t suited for artwork, but it suited Gerard. In the gloom, he splashed paint across the canvass and couldn’t quite tell how the result was going to turn out, but that just fitted perfectly. Why should he know how anything was going to turn out? How could he tell what he was supposed to be doing? It was impossible.

One morning Mikey came down into the basement and said, “Mom needs your help in the bakery today.”

“Why?”

“James was going to come, but he’s sick, and everyone else is busy. Come on, Gerard, Mom asked me to get you.”

“Can’t you help her?”

“I _am_ , but we’re a lot busier now. She’s going to need both of us.”

Mikey wouldn’t go away, so Gerard sighed and packed away his brushes and went upstairs. The bright light hurt his eyes and he scowled and squinted all the way to the bakery.

Once they got there, he wanted to accuse Mikey of lying. They didn’t seem all that busy, and anyway, people seemed to prefer to line up and be served by Mikey rather than ask Gerard for help. He stood in a corner and sulked.

After a couple of hours, a customer came in and Gerard ignored him like he’d ignored everyone else all day. But unlike all the other customers, this one came right up to Gerard and said, “Hey, Gerard, can we talk?”

It was Frank. Gerard looked at him in surprise. He looked well. He looked like he’d seen sunlight and a bathtub sometime in the last week, which was more than Gerard could say. He smiled a bit, and Gerard tried unsuccessfully to stop staring.

“Sure?” he said.

“I wanted to ask you if, um... see, Ray and some other guys are doing this music thing tomorrow night, and I thought you might want to go? Like, you and me, we could go.”

Gerard had avoided any group of people larger than... well, than just him, since he’d got off the train. Frank had to know that, and yet he was here, asking Gerard out. For a second Gerard wondered what was going on, and then he remembered.

“Oh, right,” he said. “I guess we’ve still gotta... gotta keep up appearances for President Korse, right?” And it was all his fault, too, that they had to do that. Gerard tried to feel bad about it, but instead he just felt the same thing he felt about everything else. Nothing.

Frank looked at him sadly. “If I was doing this for Korse, I would have asked you weeks ago,” he said. “It’s taken me this long, because it took me that much time to realise I wanted to do this for myself.”

Gerard shook his head. “It’s okay,” he said, “I know I was a dick before, but I’d rather you were just honest with me. Don’t pretend.”

“Honest?” Frank asked. Gerard nodded, and Frank grabbed his ear and twisted it painfully. “Stop being a self involved tool,” he hissed when Gerard yelped. “Maybe I didn’t fall for you the first time I ever saw you or whatever, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like you. There’s plenty about you to like, so why don’t you... come out with me so we can hang out and not have to worry about not dying.”

“You make a good case,” Gerard said, rubbing his ear.

“Of course I do,” Frank replied smugly.

Gerard looked at Frank and considered his words. Ever since they’d come back from the Capitol, he hadn’t felt right. He would have thought that Frank asking to spend time with him would be enough to make him feel ecstatic, but it didn’t. His head was still full of the same thoughts, the same underlying thrum of ‘wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong’.

Frank didn’t seem to be fucked up like that, like Gerard was. Gerard thought that if he were a less selfish person, he would turn Frank down, let him go out with someone who was whole inside. But he wasn’t that selfless.

“What time tomorrow night?” he asked.

*************

Ray’s music thing turned out to be Ray and two other guys playing guitars in the small yard of Ray’s parents’ house. They weren’t that great and didn’t know a whole lot of songs, but it was fun anyway, even if all Gerard did was sit in a corner and listen to everyone else talk. 

Everyone consisted of Frank, Frank’s hunting friend Bob, and Mikey who had invited himself along. None of them stared at Gerard like he was a strange and mythical being from a far away land. They didn’t talk in hushed voices or make sudden obvious changes of subject when anything to do with the Capitol came up. It was really all Gerard wanted from social interaction. There was only flavoured water to drink, but Gerard had had some of Alicia’s white liquor before he left home and he felt steady enough to get through one evening.

Once the musicians had played their entire repertoire of songs twice, Ray came over with his guitar and Frank started asking him questions. Gerard watched as Ray wrapped Frank’s hands around the guitar and started getting him to pluck out chords, and it was only when he looked away for a minute that he caught the end of a conversation between Matt, one of the guitarists, and Bob.

“...had to take tesserae,” Matt was saying. “They put our rent up again and Dad’s been sick. At least next year is my last.” 

Then they noticed Gerard watching and loudly started talking about the weather.

Gerard curled up in his chair and felt his face heat up. He felt like everyone was looking at him, looking at the poor pathetic kid who was too damaged, too broken, to get through a single evening outside his house. The kid they had to watch their words around, the kid they had to tiptoe around in case something they said or did tripped up some memory that made him freak out. 

Gerard suddenly remembered the first time he’d had to sign up for tesserae. He remembered the smell of the book, the scratching sound of the pen as he’d written his name in it. He remembered the taste of the grain they’d given him, so bland and coarse. His whole body felt like it was on fire. His heart pounded and his breath raced; he suddenly felt unpleasantly sober. He tried to keep still, freezing as though if he hid well enough the panic would go away. After a moment, though, the chair he was sitting in started to feel like a trap, and he sprang to his feet, resting on the tips of his toes, ready to run. 

Everyone was definitely looking at him now. He’d been so glad to have avoided the looks all evening, but they were looking at him now, with those careful, concerned expressions that he hated. Gerard gulped.

“Mikey,” he said. “Come on. It’s time to go.”

Mikey gave him a knowing look, but he followed Gerard without protesting. Gerard left the yard without saying goodbye. He could hear Mikey behind him wishing the others a good night but he didn’t pay much attention.

Mikey caught up to him quickly, and said, “You okay?”

“Just great,” Gerard answered. Mikey didn’t have to say anything to convey his disbelief, but Gerard let it pass and they walked in silence.

After a few minutes they heard footsteps following them, and then Frank appeared.

“You okay, Gerard?”

“Never better.”

“Bullshit,” Frank answered. He was a lot more confrontational than Mikey.

Mikey sped up, walking a little distance ahead of them. He looked over his shoulder at Gerard, and although it was quite dark, Gerard could read his expression easily. It said, talk to Frank you idiot, and also, I’m tired of you moping, so do something about it. Mikey could say a lot with very few facial muscles.

Gerard would have loved to talk to Frank if he could just think of something to say. “I had a good time,” he said.

“You had a lousy time.”

“No I didn’t. I just, I’d just had enough.”

“Yeah.” Frank looked down the street, and Gerard followed his gaze to where Mikey was walking along the top rail of someone’s front fence. “It’s going to get better,” he said. “I know it’s hard right now, but it won’t always be.”

“It will be, though. There’ll be another Games next year.”

“But we’re out of the Reaping. There’ll never be another Games for us.”

“Mikey’s not. He’s already been drawn once. And if it happens again, I won’t be able to volunteer in his place this time. I’d have to be his mentor instead.”

“That’s not going to happen. The odds are...”

“It already did happen, though! One entry, that was enough. Besides,” Gerard lowered his voice and looked around to make sure they were alone. “You know victor’s siblings get Reaped a lot. It happens too often to be just chance. And we pissed them off, with the berries. Every year, they’ll get another chance to try to hurt us. All the people we care about...” He was starting to feel panicky again, but he was distracted when Frank grabbed his hand and held it tight.

“You’ve got to stop worrying about everything that might happen. There’s no point.”

Gerard let out a shaky breath. “What if I ruined Mikey’s life by trying to save him?” Frank grimaced and looked away. Gerard wouldn’t be deterred. “This is why Alicia is so alone,” he said. “She never married or had kids, she doesn’t have friends, because she knows what they’d do. That’s the smart thing. We should take a lesson from it.”

“You’re making a great start on that, with the hermit act and the drinking.”

“Yeah, so? I’m coping. I don’t think it really matters _how_ I do that.”

Frank looked around for a second, as though he was checking for other people like Gerard had before. “We don’t have to let everything happen like that,” he said. He lowered his voice, so soft that Gerard had to strain to hear. “We could leave. Me and Bob can hunt. We wouldn’t be hungry. We can find somewhere to live that’s safe where the Capitol can’t find us.”

Gerard considered the idea briefly. “They would find us,” he said. “There isn’t any place that’s safe.”

“Then we should fight them.”

“They’d win.”

Frank scowled. “Then you’ll have to put up the way things are. I’m scared too. You and my mom are the only people who really matter to me, okay, and if anything happened to either of you I couldn’t handle it. But there’s not going to be any miracle that saves everyone; it’s up to us, to people doing what they have to do.”

Gerard looked over at Mikey again. He was trying to balance a stick on his head, and Gerard tried to imagine a place where he could be a kid and play stupid games, and not have to see horrible things. Not have to watch people kill one another on television year after year, to see people, children, starving in the street because there wasn’t enough food to go around. It was something he’d never allowed himself to want before.

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “I’ve never thought... do you really think we could...”

Frank just looked at him unhelpfully, so Gerard went quiet.

“Maybe,” Gerard went on at last. “I just can’t... I don’t know what the right thing to do is. I need time to think about it.”

Frank nodded, and Gerard realised that Frank hadn’t let go of his hand. He wondered if Frank had noticed. Then Frank looked at him, and Gerard realised he had.

“Don’t take too long to think about it,” said Frank. “In a couple of months they’re going to start preparing for the Victory Tour, and they’ll be watching us. If you really want to make a difference for Mikey, you’ve got to start now.”

“I do want that,” said Gerard softly, as he let himself dream about something even more impossible than surviving the Hunger Games. He let himself dream about a world where he and the people he cared about could be safe, and happy.


End file.
